Federal Inquiry Found Texas Hospital Violated Woman’s Right to an Emergency Abortion

“I didn’t want anyone else to have to go through this,” Thurman told the AP last week. “I put a lot of the responsibility on the state.” As a result of the delayed care, Thurman suffered a ruptured fallopian tube, permanently impacting her future fertility.

But, while the inquiry’s findings represent a very small victory for abortion access, a recent policy change by the Trump administration casts doubt on whether the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS)—the department responsible for enforcing and overseeing EMTALA—will faithfully or thoroughly investigate EMTALA violations in the future.

One day before the findings were revealed, Trump’s CMS rescinded the guidance that Biden issued to all hospitals after Roe v. Wade was overturned in June 2022, which stated that EMTALA supersedes state-level abortion bans. CMS said it 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 administrator Dr. Mehmet Oz wrote on X on Wednesday that the “Biden administration created confusion, but EMTALA is clear and the law has not changed: women will receive care for miscarriage, ectopic pregnancy, and medical emergencies in all fifty states.”

But doctors in states with abortion bans it’s the laws that are confusing—and because many carry the threat of jail time, fines, or license revocation, the result is that the pregnant patient’s life is put in jeopardy. Biden’s guidance was, in part, meant to assure doctors and healthcare workers that they’d be protected, regardless of their state’s anti-abortion laws. By revoking Biden’s guidance, Dr. Oz’s CMS is actually what’s creating the confusion.

(Also, the letter includes the term “unborn child,” which suggests the administration is still eager to make fetal personhood the law of the land.)

“This action sends a clear message: the lives and health of pregnant people are not worth protecting,” Dr. Jamila Perritt, an OB-GYN and the president of Physicians for Reproductive Health, said in a statement on Tuesday of CMS’s decision. “Complying with this law can mean the difference between life and death for pregnant people, forcing providers like me to choose between caring for someone in their time of need and turning my back on them to comply with cruel and dangerous laws.” Unsurprisingly, the move to undermine EMTALA for pregnant patients was plainly spelled out in Project 2025.

In her complaint, Thurman said the hospital first sent her away with a pamphlet on miscarriages, and was “denied care again” when she returned with heavy bleeding. “It was not until her OB/GYN pleaded to hospital staff that she be given care that the hospital provided the necessary care,” the filing states. “This care was too late, and Ms. Thurman’s ectopic pregnancy ruptured due to the hospital’s delay in treating her.”