Trump administration rescinds Biden-era requirement for ER doctors to perform abortions

CNA Staff, Jun 4, 2025 / 16:59 pm (CNA).

The Trump administration on Tuesday nixed a Biden-era requirement that forced emergency room doctors to perform abortions.  

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), a branch of the Department of Health and Human Services, announced on June 3 that it would rescind the July 2022 guidelines issued under the Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act (EMTALA).

That law, originally passed in 1986, was designed to prevent “patient dumping” by requiring Medicare-participating hospitals to provide stabilizing treatment to patients who can’t pay for treatment rather than transferring them. The Biden administration expanded the requirements in the wake of the repeal of Roe v. Wade, requiring hospitals to perform abortions as “stabilizing treatment” in emergency situations. 

The government will “continue to enforce” EMTALA “including for identified emergency medical conditions that place the health of a pregnant woman or her unborn child in serious jeopardy,” CMS said this week.

In its announcement, the government noted that it “will work to rectify any perceived legal confusion and instability created by the former administration’s actions.” 

Pro-life, conscience advocates hail decision

Major pro-life voices celebrated the decision, arguing that the Biden-era guidelines promoted abortion and spread pro-abortion disinformation. 

Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of SBA Pro-Life America, called the Tuesday decision “another win for life and truth — stopping Biden’s attack on emergency care for both pregnant moms and their unborn children.” 

The Biden administration’s guidelines were the subject of a lawsuit by the Catholic Medical Association, a national network that promotes Catholic ethics in the medical industry. The group argued that the mandate unlawfully violated conscience rights. 

Alliance Defending Freedom, the legal nonprofit arguing on behalf of the Catholic Medical Association, celebrated the decision, saying that doctors can now “perform their life-giving duties without fear of government officials forcing them to end life and violate their beliefs.”

“Doctors — especially in emergency rooms — are tasked with preserving life. The Trump administration has rolled back a harmful Biden-era mandate that compelled doctors to end unborn lives, in violation of their deeply held beliefs,” stated ADF Senior Counsel Matt Bowman.

Heritage Foundation Vice President of Domestic Policy Roger Severino celebrated the move, saying that EMTALA under the Biden administration had been “inverted” to “unlawfully mandate abortion nationwide.”

“Wide majorities of Americans oppose forcing doctors and hospitals to take innocent human life and this change goes back to respecting conscience and the rule of law,” Severino said in a post on X. 

“A stain on America’s conscience is now gone, and good riddance,” he said. 

Pro-abortion advocates criticized the decision. Jamila Perritt, the president and CEO of the pro-abortion group Physicians for Reproductive Health, said the decision “sends a clear message: The lives and health of pregnant [women] are not worth protecting.” 

But Dr. Ingrid Skop, who serves as vice president and director of medical affairs at the Charlotte Lozier Institute, called the decision “welcome news for both of my patients — a pregnant woman and her unborn child.” 

In a statement, she criticized the Biden-era guidelines, calling them a “coercive effort … to subvert existing laws to promote abortion.” 

“Although I do not perform elective abortions, I have always been able to provide quality care in obstetric emergencies, seeking to preserve the lives of both mother and child,” Skop noted.

Dannenfelser emphasized that “pregnant women are protected under pro-life laws” and warned that obfuscating this fact is dangerous for women across the nation. 

“Democrats have created confusion on this fact to justify their extremely unpopular agenda for all-trimester abortion,” she said. “In situations where every minute counts, their lies lead to delayed care and put women in needless, unacceptable danger.” 

Source: https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/264541/trump-administration-rescinds-biden-era-requirement-for-er-doctors-to-perform-abortions