{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["https://www.heinrich.senate.gov/newsroom/press-releases/nm-delegation-files-amicus-brief-urging-ninth-circuit-court-to-affirm-that-federal-law-requires-hospitals-to-provide-emergency-care-including-abortion", "N.M. Delegation Files Amicus Brief Urging Ninth Circuit Court to Affirm that Federal Law Requires Hospitals to Provide Emergency Care, Including Abortion", "2024-10-25", "2024", "2024-10", "Democrat", "Senate", "NM", "Martin Heinrich", "H001046", "www.heinrich.senate.gov", "heinrich", "https://www.heinrich.senate.gov/newsroom/press-releases", "scraper", "After the Supreme Court dismissed Idaho v. United States, returning it to the Ninth Circuit Court, 259 Members of Congress ask the Ninth Circuit to affirm that federal law ensures abortion care qualifies as \u201cemergency stabilizing care\u201d under the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act (EMTALA), and hospitals participating in Medicare must provide \u201cemergency stabilizing treatment\u201d to patients, including abortion care, when necessary.\n\nThe N.M Delegation joins the brief as New Mexico\u2019s highly impacted health system continues to serve patients from neighboring states with restrictions on reproductive health care.\n\n\u201cIn this case, respecting the supremacy of federal law is about more than just protecting our system of government; it is about protecting people\u2019s lives.\u201d\n\nWASHINGTON \u2014 U.S. Senators Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.) and Ben Ray Luj\u00e1n (D-N.M.) and U.S. Representatives Teresa Leger Fern\u00e1ndez (D-N.M.), Melanie Stansbury (D-N.M.), and Gabe Vasquez (D-N.M.) submitted an amicus brief to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in Moyle v. United States and Idaho v. United States, two consolidated cases concerning the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act (EMTALA) under consideration by the en banc Ninth Circuit. EMTALA is a federal law that requires hospitals that receive Medicare funding to provide necessary \u201cstabilizing treatment\u201d to patients experiencing medical emergencies, which includes abortion care.\n\nAfter the Dobbs decision in 2022, an anti-abortion law in Idaho went into effect, making it a felony for a doctor to terminate a patient\u2019s pregnancy unless it is \u201cnecessary\u201d to prevent the patient\u2019s death. The United States sued the State of Idaho, arguing that the state\u2019s law is preempted by existing federal law in those circumstances in which abortion may not be necessary to prevent imminent death, but still constitutes the \u201cnecessary stabilizing treatment\u201d for a patient\u2019s emergency medical condition. The district court agreed; it held that in those limited, but critically important situations, EMTALA requires Medicare-participating hospitals to provide abortion as an emergency medical treatment. Idaho Republicans appealed that ruling to the Supreme Court.\n\nIn March, 258 lawmakers, including the N.M. Congressional Delegation, filed an amicus brief, asking the Supreme Court to affirm the district court decision. In June, the Supreme Court dismissed the case but without a ruling on the merits, sending the case back to the Ninth Circuit Court and reinstating the district court\u2019s injunction.\n\nIn their brief in support of the Justice Department, the lawmakers state \u201che 99th Congress passed EMTALA to ensure that every person who visits a Medicare-funded hospital with an \u2018emergency medical condition\u2019 is offered stabilizing treatment.\u201d The lawmakers continued in their amicus brief, \u201cCongress chose broad language for that mandate, requiring hospitals that participate in the Medicare program to provide \u2018such treatment as may be required to stabilize the medical condition.\u2019\u2026 That text\u2014untouched by Congress for the past three decades\u2014makes clear that in situations in which a doctor determines that abortion constitutes the \u2018ecessary stabilizing treatment\u2019 for a pregnant patient, federal law requires the hospital to offer it. Yet Idaho has made providing that care a felony, in direct contravention of EMTALA\u2019s mandate.\u201d\n\nThe lawmakers point to numerous reports of OB/GYNs leaving Idaho en masse since the state\u2019s abortion ban went into effect \u2014 Idaho has since lost fifty-five percent of its maternal-fetal medicine specialists, and three rural hospitals have shut down maternity services altogether.\n\n\u201cThese are not hypothetical scenarios. Because Idaho\u2019s abortion ban contains no clear exceptions for the \u201cemergency medical conditions\u201d covered by EMTALA, it forces physicians to wait until their patients are on the verge of death before providing abortion care. The result in other states with similar laws has been \u2018significant maternal morbidity,\u2019\u201d wrote the lawmakers, pointing to harrowing reports of pregnant women with severe health complications being denied necessary abortion care. The lawmakers\u2019 brief also counters an argument from Idaho and its amici that the Supremacy Clause does not apply in this case because EMTALA was passed using Spending Clause authority, and therefore acts only as a condition on Medicare funding. The lawmakers make clear that alllaws passed by Congress are entitled to preemption \u2014 regardless of their source of constitutional authority \u2014 and states cannot pass laws that make it impossible for private parties to accept federal funding, inhibiting the purpose of the federal law.\n\n\u201cEMTALA requires abortion when necessary to stabilize a patient with an emergency medical condition, Idaho\u2019s near-total abortion ban is preempted to the extent that it prevents doctors from providing that care,\u201d the lawmakers wrote. \u201cThis Court should reject Appellants\u2019 novel theory that EMTALA is not entitled to preemptive effect because it was enacted pursuant to Congress\u2019s spending power. Under the Supremacy Clause, all\u2018the constitutional laws enacted by congress,\u2019 constitute \u2018the supreme Law of the Land,\u2019. As the Supreme Court has repeatedly held, the principle of federal supremacy applies to laws passed pursuant to Congress\u2019s spending authority no less than it does to laws effectuating other enumerated powers.\u201d\n\n\u201cIn sum, EMTALA plainly requires hospitals that participate in the Medicare program to provide abortion care when, in a doctor\u2019s medical judgment, it constitutes the \u2018ecessary stabilizing treatment\u2019 for a patient\u2019s \u2018emergency medical condition.\u2019\u201d\n\nThe amicus brief was led by U.S. Senators Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), Patty Murray (D-Wash.), Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), and U.S. Representatives Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.), Katherine Clark (D-Mass.), Frank Pallone (D-N.J.), Richard Neal (D-Mass.), Jerry Nadler (D-N.Y.), Diana DeGette (D-Colo.), and Barbara Lee (D-Calif.).\n\nThe lawmakers\u2019 amicus brief to the Supreme Court can be read in full here.", 1, "2026-03-30T01:40:41Z", "2026-04-07T21:57:20Z"]], "columns": ["url", "title", "date", "year", "month", "party", "chamber", "state", "member_name", "bioguide_id", "domain", "scraper", "source", "date_source", "text", "has_text", "collected_at", "updated_at"], "primary_keys": ["url"], "primary_key_values": ["https://www.heinrich.senate.gov/newsroom/press-releases/nm-delegation-files-amicus-brief-urging-ninth-circuit-court-to-affirm-that-federal-law-requires-hospitals-to-provide-emergency-care-including-abortion"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 2.232154831290245, "source": "dwillis/congress-press", "source_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press", "license": "MIT", "license_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press/blob/main/LICENSE"}