Last Updated on July 18, 2022
Texas attorney general Ken Paxton sued the Biden administration after the White House encouraged doctors in pro-life states to perform abortions.
Paxton filed his lawsuit after the Biden administration released guidance last week that said doctors could legally provide abortions if it was part of an “emergency treatment.” The guidance threatened to defund hospitals that refused to provide abortions.
Paxton claimed Biden is attempting to “transform every emergency room in the country into a walk-in abortion clinic.”
The guidance, released by the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services (HHS), alleges that the Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act (EMTALA) requires medical professionals to carry out “life- or health-saving abortion services in emergency situations.”
READ MORE: Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton Suggested He May Defend Anti-Sodomy Law
HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra believes this means doctors in pro-life states must perform abortions. “When a state law prohibits abortion and does not include an exception for the life and health of the pregnant person … that state law is preempted,” Becerra said.
If doctors and hospitals refuse to perform abortions, despite the guidance order, hefty fines and repercussions could be carried out.
“These hospitals are now threatened with having to choose between violating state law under the threat of criminal penalty or jeopardizing their ability to participate in Medicaid,” Paxton argued in his lawsuit.
Paxton pushed back on the EMTALA loophole Becerra and Biden advocated for.
“EMTALA does not authorize and has never been thought to authorize the federal government to require emergency healthcare providers to perform abortions. Now they are trying to have their appointed bureaucrats mandate that hospitals and emergency medicine physicians perform abortions,” Paxton explained.
READ MORE: Biden Signs Executive Order Targeting Red States over Abortion Laws
The Texas attorney general added that he will continue to defend the SCOTUS decision to overturn Roe v. Wade. “I will ensure that President Biden will be forced to comply with the Supreme Court’s important decision concerning abortion, and I will not allow him to undermine and distort existing laws to fit his administration’s unlawful agenda.”
Currently, the only legal way a mother will be able to abort her child in Texas is if she is facing a life-threatening situation. Within a few weeks, Texas’ trigger law will officially come into effect and permit abortion if birth “places the female at risk of death or poses a serious risk of substantial impairment of a major bodily function.”
Biden’s White House press secretary, Karine Jean-Pierre bashed Paxton’s lawsuit on Twitter.
“The Texas Attorney General’s lawsuit is yet another example of an extreme and radical Republican elected official,” she tweeted.
Stay tuned to National File for any updates.