US Senate seeks emergency abortion care policies from hospitals in states with limited access

A U.S. Senate panel is asking eight hospitals in states with limited abortion access to share more information about their policies around the procedure after reports of dire results for several patients who received delayed care or were denied care.

The request comes after a recent ProPublica report found that a Georgia woman died in 2022 after hospital staff delayed post-abortion care — two weeks after the state’s abortion law took effect.

Amber Thurman, whose death was first reported by ProPublica last week, died in August 2022 following a 20-hour wait for treatment at a metro Atlanta hospital after traveling to North Carolina to get an abortion. A review by the state’s maternal mortality review board determined Thurman’s death was preventable, ProPublica reported.

“Across the country, there are reports that women are being turned away by emergency departments when they seek emergency reproductive health care, even in instances where medical professionals determine that, without such care, the patient is at risk of serious complications, infection, or even death,” said U.S. Senate Finance Committee Chairman Ron Wyden, a Democrat from Oregon. “These women are caught between dangerous state laws that are in clear conflict” with — and preempted — by the Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act, or EMTALA).

EMTALA was passed in 1986 to guarantee that anyone who goes to the emergency room in a hospital that receives Medicare funding will get stabilizing medical care.

Georgia bans most abortions once a doctor can detect fetal cardiac activity. That’s typically around six weeks of pregnancy and before many know they are pregnant. The state allows later abortions to be performed in the cases of rape, incest, fetal anomaly or to save the life of the mother.

According to ProPublica, Thurman sought help from Piedmont Henry Hospital after traveling to North Carolina and receiving abortion pills in 2022. She was about nine weeks pregnant with twins at the time. When the abortion didn’t complete, Thurman developed sepsis. Twenty hours after she arrived at the emergency room in Henry County, her heart stopped on the operating table, ProPublica reported.

The U.S. Senate panel is asking hospitals in Georgia, Florida, Louisiana, Missouri and Texas to share details on the policies in place to ensure patients are aware and understand their rights under EMTALA, including copies of posted signage and what procedures are followed when determining if emergency care is in conflict with the state’s abortion laws.

The Finance Committee is holding a hearing on Tuesday to look into “ongoing threats to reproductive health care,” according to a news release.

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