WHEREAS:

Tenet Health operates hospitals and other acute health care facilities in 19 states that have adopted laws severely restricting access to abortion. According to its website, Tenet Health’s impact “spreads far and deep with more than 465 ambulatory surgery centers and surgical hospitals, 61 hospitals and approximately 110 additional outpatient centers and other sites of care.”1

Although most abortions are not performed in a hospital setting, those that are performed in a hospital are often the most serious and complicated abortions, including those performed because a woman’s life or health is in danger or in later stages of pregnancy, when severe fetal anomalies are first detected.

As many as 30% of pregnancies end in miscarriage, and the methods of managing a miscarriage are the same as for abortion. Some untreated miscarriages can lead to complications that can be life-threatening. Ectopic pregnancies (1-2% of all pregnancies) are never viable. (Washington Post, 7.16.22)

It has been widely reported that in states that have passed severe restrictions on abortion, doctors have been struggling with the legality of providing terminations for ectopic pregnancies, incomplete miscarriages, or other circumstances where miscarriage is inevitable or the health or life of the pregnant woman is in danger. Some patients have been denied care by health care providers. (Associated Press, 6.16.22; Bloomberg, 7.12.22; Washington Post, 7.16.22; Texas Tribune, 7.15.22; Kaiser Health News, 8.8.22)

The Department of Health and Human Services, under guidance from the executive order of President Biden, clarified that the Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act (EMTALA) preempts any state law which prohibits abortion and does not include an exception for the life and health of the pregnant person. Therefore, healthcare providers are required to provide stabilizing medical treatment, including abortion, to a patient who presents to the emergency department and is found to have an emergency medical condition.