Esther Choo, M.D. M.P.H., is an emergency medicine physician, health policy researcher and founding member of Equity Quotient, a company that advises organizations on building cultures of equity.
In oral arguments on Wednesday, the state of Idaho told the Supreme Court that the federal Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act doesn’t protect the actions of emergency care practitioners from the state’s abortion ban — even when abortion is the medically indicated treatment. In making its argument, Idaho made multiple statements that I found troubling, especially as an emergency medicine physician practicing in a neighboring state.
is a federal law that requires emergency departments to provide treatment for any emergency condition until it is resolved or stabilized. Among other things, Idaho argued that ’s requirements of stability can be determined by individual states; that because abortion isn’t specifically mentioned in the federal law, this treatment isn’t protected by it; and because the law requires an emergency department to provide treatments that are “available” at that hospital, abortion can simply be considered unavailable because it’s been made illegal. All those arguments are flawed.
, because it allows a narrow exemption if abortion is necessary to prevent death. There are some beliefs embedded in this argument that gravely misunderstand what we do in the emergency room and the ethics that guide our work. This defense of Idaho’s law presumes that preventing death is the only outcome that matters to us and to our patients.
in particular, is just about preventing death. The law requires us “to provide such medical treatment of the condition as may be necessary to assure, within reasonable medical probability, that no material deterioration of the condition” is likely to occur. In medicine, the standard that we are held to by our profession, our ethics and public expectation is to prevent harm and to treat illness as early as possible.
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