(Bloomberg) – The US Department of Health and Human Services says its law requiring emergency medical treatment takes priority over state restrictions prohibiting abortions. The guidance is meant to protect pregnant patients facing serious medical situations following the overturning of Roe v. Wade.
The department said that physicians' judgment will prevail to protect the health of women in labor and with conditions such as ectopic pregnancies or dangerously high blood pressure, as required by its Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act.
If an abortion "is the stabilizing treatment necessary to resolve that condition, the physician must provide that treatment," HHS secretary Xavier Becerra said in a letter to health providers on Monday.
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