Washington, D.C. – Yesterday, U.S. Senator Laphonza Butler (D-Calif.) joined Senators Patty Murray (D-Wash.), Jacky Rosen (D-Nev.), Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.), and Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) in introducing a resolution expressing the sense of the Senate that every patient has the basic right to emergency health care, including abortion care, regardless of where they live. The introduction comes as new reporting from ProPublica makes plain that Republican abortion bans are preventing women from receiving lifesaving emergency health care and resulting in preventable deaths.
Since the overturn of Roe v. Wade over two years ago, nearly two dozen US states led by Republicans have passed, banned, or severely restricted access to abortion. These strict laws have created confusion around the treatment doctors can provide even when a pregnant patient’s life is in danger, as physicians fear that they may lose their medical license, be sued, or even charged with a felony if they perform life-saving emergency care. Despite the federal Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act’s (EMTALA) requirements that Medicare-participating hospitals treat and stabilize pregnant patients in need of emergency medical care, women are being turned away from emergency rooms following the Dobbs decision.
In Moyle v. United States, the U.S. Supreme Court had the opportunity to reaffirm that federal law requires pregnant patients to have access to life-saving emergency care in every state, but instead, the Court sent the case back to the lower courts, effectively punting on the issue. Senator Butler was one of 258 Congressional Democrats who filed an amicus brief urging the Supreme Court to clarify that hospitals must provide abortion care as emergency stabilizing care in order to save a patient’s life. While the litigation continues in the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, the health and lives of women remain at risk as uncertainty around emergency abortion care persists.
In addition to Senators Butler, Murray, Rosen, Baldwin, and Wyden the resolution is cosponsored by Senators Schumer (D-N.Y.), Bennet (D-Colo.), Blumenthal (D-Conn.), Booker (D-N.J.), Cantwell (D-Wash.), Cardin (D-Md.), Carper (D-Del.), Casey (D-Pa.), Coons (D-Del.), Cortez Masto (D-Nev.), Duckworth (D-Ill.), Durbin (D-Ill.), Fetterman (D-Pa.), Gillibrand (D-N.Y.), Hassan (D-N.H.), Heinrich (D-N.M.), Helmy (D-N.J.), Hirono (D-Hawaii), Kaine (D-Va.), King (I-Maine), Klobuchar (D-Minn.), Merkley (D-Ore.), Padilla (D-Calif.), Peters (D-Mich.), Reed (D-R.I.), Sanders (I-Vt.), Schatz (D-Hawaii), Shaheen (D-N.H.), Smith (D-Minn.), Stabenow (D-Mich.), Van Hollen (D-Md.), Warner (D-Va.), Warnock (D-Ga.), Warren (D-Mass.), Welch (D-Vt.), Whitehouse (D-R.I.).
The resolution is endorsed by Planned Parenthood Federation of America, Center for Reproductive Rights, In Our Own Voice: National Black Women’s Reproductive Justice Agenda, Reproductive Freedom For All (formerly NARAL Pro-Choice America), American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, National Women’s Law Center, Physicians for Reproductive Health, Power to Decide, National Latina Institute for Reproductive Justice, Guttmacher Institute, National Family Planning & Reproductive Health Association, All* Above All, National Asian Pacific American Women’s Forum, URGE: Unite for Reproductive and Gender Equity, National Council of Jewish Women, and National Partnership for Women and Families.
Last week, U.S. Representatives Emilia Sykes (D-Ohio-13) and Mikie Sherrill (D-N.J.-11) introduced the House companion to today’s Senate resolution.
The full text of the resolution can be read HERE.
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