1y ago

US government rejects complaint that woman was improperly denied an emergency abortion in Oklahoma

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services says an Oklahoma hospital did not violate federal law when doctors told a woman with a nonviable pregnancy to wait in the parking lot until her condition worsened enough to qualify for an abortion under the state’s strict ban.

Jaci Statton, 26, was among several women last year who challenged abortion restrictions that went into effect in Republican-led states after the Supreme Court revoked the nationwide right to abortion in 2022.

Rather than join a lawsuit, Statton filed a complaint with the Department of Health and Human Services under the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act, or EMTALA. The complaint came a little more than a year after Biden’s administration informed hospitals that they must provide abortion services if the mother’s life is at risk. At the time, President Joe Biden’s administration said EMTALA supersedes state abortion bans that don’t have adequate exceptions for medical emergencies.

The Biden administration’s denial of Statton’s claim is the latest development in the ongoing scrutiny over how to apply EMTALA in the wake of the Supreme Court ruling that overturned Roe v. Wade. It also underscores the uphill legal battle reproductive rights advocates when pushing back against state abortion bans.

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According to the complaint, Statton learned she was pregnant in early 2023 and soon began experiencing severe pain and nausea. Doctors in Oklahoma eventually told her that she had a partial molar pregnancy, which left untreated could cause hemorrhaging, infection, and even death.
“However, providers told Jaci that they could not provide an abortion until she was actively crashing in front of them or on the verge of a heart attack,” the complaint stated. “In the meantime, the best that they could offer was to let Jaci sit in the parking lot so that she would be close to the hospital when her condition further deteriorated.”
If federal law saying hospitals can't just let pregnant people die doesn't apply here, when the hell would it apply?
- An hour before death? 30 minutes before death? 5 minutes before death? All perfectly measurable things of course.
  
  No heart beat for at least 1 minuite
- Except when you put those quotes in context, it's clear the "they" being referred to in the beginning is the Biden administration
  But in the 18 months since Roe fell — a period during which dozens of women have come forward with harrowing stories of medical care denied because of abortion bans — the Biden administration has only publicly announced one case, involving a patient who had sought care in Missouri and Kansas, where it determined that hospitals had violated the law in denying an abortion. The rejection of the Oklahoma complaint, a decision that was delivered to Statton in October, shocked abortion rights advocates and left them frustrated that the Biden administration was not following through on its promise to strongly enforce the law when it came to abortions.
  “Jaci’s case is the perfect example of how it appears they are actually applying EMTALA in what could be charitably described as the narrowest sense,” said Rabia Muqaddam, a senior staff attorney with the Center for Reproductive Rights, who worked with Statton on her complaint. “It’s not just frustrating. It’s inexplicable, frankly.”
  Seems like they're entirely right to blame the Biden administration here for not following through on pledges to hold red state healthcare systems to federal law when there's also things like this going on
  Biden officials also confirmed one additional case that the administration had determined violated EMTALA involving a woman who presented at two different hospitals in Florida with a life-threatening pregnancy condition in December 2022. In that case, first reported by The Washington Post last year, doctors said they were unable to treat the woman under Florida’s abortion ban, which outlaws abortion after 15 weeks of pregnancy.
  ...
  While abortion rights advocates said they were glad to hear of a second EMTALA action, they questioned why the Biden administration would issue these previously unreported warnings in secret.
  “In our view, true accountability requires the public and other hospitals to know about these violations,” Muqaddam said.
  Other patients with high-profile cases that might have qualified under EMTALA had never heard of the federal law and had no idea their hospital could potentially be held responsible for their treatment. Of the seven patients contacted directly by The Post, or through their lawyers, only two said they were aware of any kind of state or federal investigation into their case, and neither had been informed of any violation.
  [Bolding added]
  Really seems like there's a lot more the administration could and should be doing here
- Unfortunately the courts have been ruling against using EMTALA in this way, letting these ridiculous state laws stand instead (that are totally oblivious to medical reality and think there's some magic point where a doctor can say, now they're gonna die if I don't do something and then still be able to save them 100% no problem).
  https://www.texastribune.org/2024/01/02/texas-abortion-fifth-circuit/
  Currently the Biden admin has two different lawsuits trying to apply EMTALA more aggressively already.
  https://www.vox.com/scotus/2023/12/4/23984674/supreme-court-abortion-emtala-emergency-medically-necessary-idaho
  The supreme court is allowing the state laws to stand in the meantime though. A bad sign for how they will eventually rule. Unfortunately unless we see the supreme court rule in favor of the Biden admin's position to use EMTALA more aggressively (which seems unlikely with this court), they're not able to do much here.
- This sucks but severe pain and nausea could be a natural miscarriage. EMTALA really is about splitting those hairs now.
- When it's more politically convenient
Embarrassing and appalling. That poor girl.
We don't have enough information. Of course, morally, a non viable pregnancy should be terminated ASAP due to the possibility of complications. But EMTALA deals with emergent situations. So legally, without someone telling us what her medical state was at the time, it's all very gray area. A partial molar pregnancy does usually miscarry on its own (it is non viable). But the longer it goes on, the worse the long term effects can be on the mother. So again, morally the choice is clear. Legally the hospital was in a gray area and chose to protect itself from Christian Theocrats who would use the power of the state to punish them and damage healthcare for many other people.
Am I the only one who thinks this is the right thing to do (sort of)? A federal agency trying to apply a law has to follow the law as passed by Congress and as judged by the Court, regardless of whether they agree with it. Those of us who fear someone batshit insane coming would do well to remember that checks and balances work in many directions and the wheels of government grind slowly.
Someone else posted links to administration lawsuits challenging those laws or the court’s interpretation. THATS THE PROCESS, whether you’re a law abiding executive or a batshit insane dictator wannabe. It may be slow, painful, frustrating, and most unfortunate for the victim, but that’s the right way to handle it
Let's see the Dems try and wash over this one.
Can't blame the GOP when it's Biden's administration.
- Plenty of blame to go around
  
  And it's all the admins fault. Who's else would it be? Down votes mean nothing.
- "How are the people doing horrible things any worse than the ones who try to stop them but don't always succeed?"

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