Texas judge blocks Biden administration emergency abortion guidance

FILE PHOTO – Abortion rights protesters take part in nationwide demonstrations following the unsealed Supreme Court opinion that suggests the abortion rights decision Roe v. Wade may be overturned, in Houston, Texas, U.S., May 14, 2022. REUTERS /Callaghan O’Hare

Sign up now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.com

Aug 24 (Reuters) – A federal judge in Texas late on Tuesday blocked President Joe Biden’s administration from implementing new guidelines in the Republican-led state that require hospitals to provide emergency abortions to women, despite state bans on the procedure.

U.S. District Judge James Wesley Hendrix in Lubbock agreed with Republican Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton that the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) guidance was unauthorized and went beyond the text of a related federal law.

The judge declined to halt implementation of the guidelines nationwide and instead only blocked HHS from enforcing it in Texas and against two anti-abortion physician groups.

Sign up now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.com

Hendrix’s ruling came ahead of an expected ruling Wednesday by another judge on whether a near-total ban in Idaho challenged by the U.S. Justice Department conflicts with the same federal statute at issue in the Texas case. Read more

Paxton, a staunch conservative, hailed the decision on Twitter, saying the Biden administration had sought to “transform every emergency room in the country into an abortion clinic.”

White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre called Hendrix’s decision a “blow to Texans,” saying women in the state could now be denied vital care for conditions like severe bleeding or life-threatening hypertension.

“It’s wrong, it’s backward, and women can die as a result,” she said in a statement. “The war is not over”.

The guidance came after Biden, a Democrat, signed an executive order in July seeking to ease access to abortion services after the Supreme Court in June overturned the Roe v. Wade decision that recognized women’s nationwide right to abortion. Read more

Abortion services ceased in Texas after the state’s highest court on July 2, at Paxton’s urging, cleared the way for a nearly century-old abortion ban to go into effect. Read more

In his ruling, Hendrix, an appointee of former Republican President Donald Trump, said the guidance went too far in expanding the 1986 federal law, the Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Work Act, which seeks to ensure that hospitals provide emergency medical care to the poor and uninsured.

“This Guidance goes beyond the text of EMTALA, which protects both mothers and unborn children, is silent on abortion, and preempts state law only when the two directly conflict,” he wrote.

Sign up now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.com

Reporting by Nate Raymond in Boston; Editing by Bernadette Baum and Rosalba O’Brien

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

Nate Raymond

Thomson Reuters

Nate Raymond reports on the federal judiciary and litigation. He can be reached at [email protected].

Related Posts

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *