Biden is again putting abortion policy ahead of health care

Vulnerable patients in need of basic medical care deserve treatment that improves their health, but today such care is becoming a scarce luxury. The Biden administration is imposing radical cultural and political agendas on hospitals, medical professionals and patients, preventing them from providing or receiving holistic medical treatment.

The White House will soon eliminate conscience protections for medical practitioners who object to harmful procedures like abortion. The goal is to arm them to apply such “treatments” against their best medical judgment and their beliefs. The administration’s move is just one of many egregious violations that perpetuate medical misinformation and threaten authentic patient care.

Shortly after Roe v. Wade was overturned, the administration issued federal guidance, challenged by Texas and Idaho, intended to force emergency room doctors to provide abortions as “emergency treatment.” In making this powerful move, Biden’s team relied on a questionable oversimplification of the Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act of 1986 (EMTALA) in a twisted attempt to, as one state attorney general put it, “transform … hospitals and emergency rooms in walk-in abortion clinics. It once again exposed the White House’s prioritization of unrestricted abortion over patient health.

These callous guidelines could end dozens of innocent lives while creating a disconnect between emergency patients and the care they need. Giving women the false impression that induced abortion is life-saving care risks tricking them into seeking treatment that can lead to lifelong mental and physical damage. But most doctors understand that an induced abortion is not medically necessary to save the mother’s life. And despite the administration’s and its allies’ irresponsible fear-mongering campaign, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) already correctly excludes the treatment of several emergency complications, such as ectopic pregnancy and failed early pregnancy, from its definition of abortion. However, the administration tries to paint abortion as a medical necessity.

When women facing urgent complications present to life-affirming emergency rooms, they receive timely and exceptional health care. This care is what EMTALA has always needed, what expectant mothers have long enjoyed in every state and facility across the country, and what they continue to receive, including in states with laws protecting the lives of children before birth. However, these women may soon find that the authentic care they need in their states is undermined by other measures, such as the new EMTALA guidelines, driven not by medical wisdom but by politics.

This year, Biden’s team is pushing for yet another federal rule that would prevent 3,000 local pregnancy resource centers across the country from receiving $16.5 million in federal Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) funds. Withholding TANF funds is in stark contrast to the life-affirming mission of these centers, which outnumber Planned Parenthood facilities 14 to one.

Pregnancy centers in states including Missouri and Pennsylvania that currently benefit from TANF funds will no longer be able to provide free ultrasounds, medical exams, housing, clothing and more in connection with the program, even though TANF exists to “ promoting job and marriage training … and encouraging two-parent families.” These goals are consistent with the long-standing mission of these centers to support mothers financially, emotionally and physically.

Doctors, nurses, and other health care professionals who carefully care for patients in pregnancy medical centers and emergency rooms can point to countless stories of women reaping the benefits of their life-affirming care. Jean Davis, for example, was empowered by the staff of one such center not only to give birth to her son, but also to escape a life of unspeakable abuse, human trafficking and drug addiction. She now works full-time to counsel women from backgrounds like hers.

Patients deserve exceptional, life-saving and life-affirming treatment at every stage and phase of life. Fathers, mothers, grandparents and children deserve no less. It is precisely for this reason that our organizations are committed to maintaining this kind of care, even in the face of politically motivated hostility.

The Biden administration must stop putting party politics before the lives of patients. Together, we can all protect quality medical care for our loved ones. One place to start is to oppose the Biden administration’s crusade against life-affirming health care.

Christina Francis is the CEO of the American Association of Pro-Life Obstetricians and Gynecologists. Chris Faddis is president of Solidarity HealthShare.