The federal Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act (EMTALA) requires emergency rooms to treat or stabilize patients in labor and transfer them to another hospital if necessary. But an Associated Press investigation uncovered horrifying incidents of pregnant women being turned away from emergency rooms:

Via AP:

Pregnant patients have “become radioactive to emergency departments” in states with extreme abortion restrictions, said Sara Rosenbaum, a George Washington University health law and policy professor.

“They are so scared of a pregnant patient, that the emergency medicine staff won’t even look. They just want these people gone,” Rosenbaum said.

Consider what happened to a woman who was nine months pregnant and having contractions when she arrived at the Falls Community Hospital in Marlin, Texas, in July 2022, a week after the Supreme Court’s ruling on abortion. The doctor on duty refused to see her.

“The physician came to the triage desk and told the patient that we did not have obstetric services or capabilities,” hospital staff told federal investigators during interviews, according to documents. “The nursing staff informed the physician that we could test her for the presence of amniotic fluid. However, the physician adamantly recommended the patient drive to a Waco hospital.”

According to Google, Waco is 36 minutes (30 miles) away from Marlin. AP was unable to determine what happened to the pregnant woman after she was turned away. However, other known results were sickening: Another Texas woman miscarried in the restroom of a Houston ER lobby after she was refused treatment and while her husband called 911 for help. A woman turned away from a hospital in Roxboro, North Carolina gave birth in a car to a baby who did not survive.

C&L reported last year on similarly awful cases in Kansas and Missouri.

Federal law imposes severe penalties on hospitals that don’t follow EMTALA but the process can take years, AP reported. Even worse, The Supreme Court will hear arguments Wednesday in a case that could further weaken EMTALA by allowing states to deny abortions to women with an emergency medical condition. In an ominous sign, the Supreme Court ruled in January that Idaho’s ban to override EMTALA could stay in place while the case is pending.

To the forced-birthers on the Supreme Court and elsewhere, “pro life” goes hand-in-hand with denying emergency medical care to pregnant women!