Forcing Healthcare Providers to Use State Funding for Abortions
Ken Paxton, Texas Attorney General
AUSTIN – (News Release) Attorney General Paxton filed a motion to enjoin the Biden Administration from using a provision of the Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act (EMTALA) to require Texas hospitals and doctors to perform abortions as a condition of receiving Medicare and Medicaid funding.
This Biden Administration’s Abortion Mandate has the effect of requiring doctors and hospitals to choose between performing abortions in violation of State law or caring for women as they always have while incurring fines and the loss of federal funding.
Texas law has long permitted doctors to perform abortions when the life of the mother is at risk. That is still the law. EMTALA does not empower the federal government to change that. EMTALA requires hospitals to treat patients the same regardless of their ability to pay; it does not authorize the federal government to commandeer the practice of medicine.
“While the Biden Administration continues to make up rules that are unconstitutional, I will keep holding them accountable,” said Attorney General Paxton. “I will not allow the Biden Administration to threaten doctors and hospitals with this unlawful mandate and put millions of Texans’ access to healthcare on the line.”
To read the motion click here.
To read the brief click here.
