Hospitals lawyers “we’d rather be maybe sued by the state than definitely sued and shut down”
Is how this plays out in real life.
It wasn’t just getting sued. Your healthcare provider would face a class B felony and likely revocation of their license prior to amendment 3 passing.
Missouri faces the nation's fourth-largest shortage of healthcare professionals, with 111 of 114 counties designated as health professional shortage areas. The state projects a deficit of 3,102 doctors by 2030, including 687 primary care providers. Hospital staffing remains strained, with a 17.4% vacancy rate for registered nurses, representing 6,982 unfilled positions. The crisis is compounded by Missouri exporting one-third of medical students to out-of-state residency programs.
It’s not good business for a portion of your workforce to end up in prison when you’re already in a shortage area.
It doesn’t really matter since the right to abortions was added to the state constitution.
It would be cool if she won, but I don’t think she will. Super easy to argue that her circumstances had not yet reached the level of “medical emergency”.
So fucked are we
Doctors told her she would be unlikely to carry the child to term, and doing so increased her chances of infection or other severe outcome.
When the law is a witch hunt not based on science, doctors cannot operate based on their best judgement based on science. Real issues of “unlikely” and “increased her chances” aren’t the same things as immediate medical emergency: they prevent an immediate medical emergency. Any law restricting abortions to when they are “medically necessary” will always lead to cases where its denied until its immediately medically necessary, at which point it may be too late. This is a clear-cut example of what such laws will always do and doctors being forced to tiptoe around the feelings of fanatics instead of being able to practice medicine.
Women are dying because doctors aren’t providing medically necessary care.
Some doctors would rather risk their patient dying than face legal issues. Many are leaving those states and forcing pregnancy centers to close due to lack of staff, which also affects the mortality of the women in those areas.
federal EMTALA requirements have not changed, and continue to require that healthcare professionals offer treatment, including abortion care, that the provider reasonably determines is necessary to stabilize the patient’s emergency medical condition
At the time of the discussion, Farmer was medically stable, with some vaginal bleeding that was not heavy.
Sounds like she was not experiencing an emergency medical condition that would have required stabilization. It could have become more severe, which explains why conventional care would have been abortion, but it was not, at the moment of presentation.
Sure would be nice if they would just let the physicians practice medicine, without having to second guess which law takes precedence.
In your opinion. Unless you’re a Missouri judge, that opinion is not useful.
This is not a medical error. EMTALA is not a protective law for healthcare facilities or professionals. The state can still prosecute based on their own laws, and in Texas, for example, performing an abortion can come with a lifetime sentence.
From the medical provider and hospitals standpoint, you are now stuck between a rock and a hard place. Perform an abortion and face criminal charges from the state or refrain and face civil charges from the fed.
If you had the choice to face a criminal charge (prison sentence) or a civil charge (fine), which would you pick?
Texas law imposes severe criminal penalties for performing abortions. Medical professionals who perform abortions face first-degree felony charges punishable by five years to life in prison if the procedure results in fetal death. Attempting or inducing an abortion is a second-degree felony, carrying two to 20 years imprisonment. Additionally, providers face minimum civil penalties of $100,000 per violation and mandatory revocation of their medical license.
Which federal law are you referring to? EMTALA does not supersede state law, nor does it prevent the state from pursuing criminal charges for abortion.
It’s unrealistic to expect a significant number of doctors to throw away their livelihoods and go to prison to prove a legal threat. Doctors are being advised by risk management divisions of the hospital to not even consider abortions in these cases (in certain states) because it means saying goodbye to your practice, your savings, and your family.
Texas successfully challenged EMTALA's application to abortion cases through a lawsuit in 2022. The 5th Circuit Court ruled that EMTALA does not mandate abortion care or override state law. Texas became the only state exempt from federal emergency care requirements for pregnant patients. Under Texas law, abortion is only permitted for "risk of death" rather than EMTALA's broader "serious jeopardy" to health standard
Tuesday’s ruling, authored by Judge Kurt D. Engelhardt, said the court “decline[d] to expand the scope of EMTALA.”
“We agree with the district court that EMTALA does not provide an unqualified right for the pregnant mother to abort her child,” Englehardt wrote. “EMTALA does not mandate medical treatments, let alone abortion care, nor does it preempt Texas law.”
https://www.texastribune.org/2024/01/02/texas-abortion-fifth-circuit/
It could be very easily argued that “could deteriorate rapidly” is not a medical emergency, and therefore does not meet the requirements of the MO or federal laws to allow for inducing labor or abortion.
Given the overzealous rhetoric from state officials, I understand the hospital and doctor’s reluctance to provide care. We are fucking ourselves.
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