US District Judge Wesley Hendrix Tuesday enjoined the enforcement of guidance from the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) requiring hospitals to provide emergency abortions, ruling that the guidance went beyond what is allowable under the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act (EMTALA). This decision came from the US District Court for the Northern District of Texas Lubbock Division.

Last month US President Joe Biden signed an executive order to ease access to medical services for abortion and contraceptives in response to the Supreme Court’s ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization that eliminated the constitutional right to an abortion provided by Roe v. Wade. The Department of Health and Human Services then issued guidance to remind medical providers of their existing EMTALA obligations to provide abortions when emergency care is required to save a mother’s life, regardless of state law. In response to the guidance, Texas sued and challenged the guidance. 

The court ruled that EMTALA, a federal law ensuring emergency medical care for the poor and uninsured, does not require doctors to provide abortions when doing so would violate Texas state law. It also ruled that the guidance went beyond EMTALA’s text and was unauthorized.

Hendrix said in his opinion that the guidance discards EMTALA’s requirement to consider the welfare of unborn children when determining how to stabilize a pregnant woman, claims to preempt state law without explicit provisions to the contrary, and interferes with the practice of medicine in violation of the Medicare Act. He also noted that the guidance was subject to notice-and-comment rulemaking requirements, which did not happen when promulgating it.