Democracy Forward President Reacts to Dangerous Decision: “Business as Usual” for Women at the US Supreme Court

Washington, D.C. – Today the United States Supreme Court allowed a lower court ruling to stand that threatens the lives and safety of pregnant women in Texas. In a dangerous decision, the Supreme Court kept in place a Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals order that permits Texas to ban emergency abortions, in spite of a federal law known as the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act (EMTALA) that requires hospitals to provide emergency care to pregnant women. 

Leading pro-democracy legal organization Democracy Forward represents the nation’s top organizations of medical professionals, emergency physicians, and obstetrician-gynecologists in this and other cases that seek to avoid the basic, life-saving requirements of EMTALA. Democracy Forward President and CEO Skye Perryman released the following statement in response to the Supreme Court decision: 

“On the first day of its new term, the Court is showing that it is business as usual and women’s lives and wellbeing are again threatened at the hands of the Dobbs court. Pregnant patients deserve certainty that when they are seeking emergency medical care they are able to get it. Congress has long made this guarantee. But, the Court’s decision today threatens to deny patients this basic care and to further sow chaos in hospitals, putting healthcare professionals in impossible situations and undeniably jeopardizing the health and safety of patients.”

This order comes on the first day of the 2024-2025 U.S. Supreme Court term and follows last term’s ruling in a similar case regarding Idaho’s near-total abortion ban. In Texas v. Becerra, the Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit had issued a dangerous ruling not based in law or fact, which the federal government asked the U.S. Supreme Court to consider. Instead, the Court dismissed the federal government’s request today.

For more information, please visit www.democracyforward.org. 

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