Republican Abortion Bans Are Chasing Women Out Of Emergency Rooms

Abortion bans have put hospitals in an impossible position and women are paying the price.

by Justin Rosario

Two weeks ago, I wrote an updated piece about the two miscarriages my wife Debbie and I struggled with in 2006. I had written about this before from the point of view that Republicans were endangering the lives of women by banning any procedure that might be viewed as an abortion.

A delightful little troll spent days screaming at me that this couldn’t possibly happen because the law doesn’t prevent women from seeking healthcare in the case of an emergency. He was adamant about this. But, of course, he was wrong. This is exactly what has been happening and, worse, Republicans planned it all along.

When your emergency is not enough of an emergency

Contrary to what Mr. “Women will never be turned away in an emergency!” believes, women are, in fact, increasingly being turned away in Republican-controlled states. Abortion bans have put hospitals in an impossible position and women are paying the price. 

The AP reports on the entirely predictable results of Republican misogyny:

WASHINGTON (AP) — One woman miscarried in the lobby restroom of a Texas emergency room as front desk staff refused to check her in. Another woman learned that her fetus had no heartbeat at a Florida hospital, the day after a security guard turned her away from the facility. And in North Carolina, a woman gave birth in a car after an emergency room couldn’t offer an ultrasound. The baby later died.

Complaints that pregnant women were turned away from U.S. emergency rooms spiked in 2022 after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, federal documents obtained by The Associated Press reveal.

When I first wrote about this in 2022, I noted that Catholic hospitals were already turning women away if the life-saving care they needed involved an abortion. I also noted that this was starting to become a problem for standard hospitals and that Republicans were doing it on purpose.

Two years later and the situation has become far worse. Hospitals are paralyzed because the bans are so vague and open-ended that it’s impossible to know what life-saving procedures will cross the line. Is your emergency not enough of an emergency to justify terminating a pregnancy? Republicans are eager to find out with ruinous multi-million dollar lawsuits against hospitals and doctors. 

I promise you, Republican Attorneys General with aspirations of higher office have been watching like hawks to bring a doctor up on murder charges for saving the life of a woman. What better way to prove you’re the ultimate pro-life warrior than throwing a doctor in jail for 25 years because he saved the life of a 16-year-old Black girl who was bleeding out?

But what about federal law?

What about it? Oh, you mean the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act (EMTALA)? The law that says emergency rooms have to ensure the safety of people in labor or at least get them to another hospital if they don’t have the proper staff or resources? Apparently we are ignoring this law for fear of Republicans suing the hospital, or just sending a mob to burn it down.

And that law might not be around much longer anyway:

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court on Friday allowed Idaho to enforce its strict abortion ban, even in medical emergencies, while a legal fight continues.

The justices said they would hear arguments in April and put on hold a lower court ruling that had blocked the Idaho law in hospital emergencies, based on a lawsuit filed by the Biden administration.

In other words, Republicans are, quite literally, arguing in court that a dying woman can be refused care if that care requires an abortion.

Take a moment to digest that. We are not talking about forcing hospitals to perform voluntary abortions. We are talking about terminating a pregnancy in an emergency situation, and Republicans are adamant that women be left to die.

Pro-life? Maybe not so much.

It’s really hard to wrap your head around such utter disregard for the health and welfare of women until you remember that Republicans see women as a threat. Their right to vote. Their right to economic freedom. Even their right to bodily autonomy. All of these things offend the right on a deep, primal level. There’s a reason they’ve become very comfortable openly talking about how women need to lose the right to vote. How men should be allowed to marry little girls. How No-Fault divorce should be eliminated. 

And, of course, all of the reproductive freedoms of women should be stripped away.

No abortion? That’s just the beginning. Republicans are already laying the groundwork to go after birth control pills. After that? All forms of birth control except, perhaps condoms. And, honestly, I’m not terribly sure they won’t ban those despite the public health crisis banning prophylactics would create. If you’re not aware of it, Republicans consider sexually transmitted diseases a useful tool to dissuade premarital sex, never mind punishing the ungodly wickedness of The Gays. No, I am actually not kidding.

Nothing the right does can be looked at in isolation. The cruelty towards women is the goal of these bans. That’s why their wording is so vague, creating the maximum amount of confusion. Sure, they all have “exceptions” for the mother’s life but if hospitals don’t know what those exceptions are or how they work and Republicans refuse to clarify them, what choice do they have? Roll the dice and risk being shut down and be unable to help thousands of other patients? Again, an impossible choice and one no one should have to make.

But this was always the goal of the Republican Party: To have women in pain, alone, terrified, and close to death.

It’s a cold comfort but come November, Republicans are going to reap the rewards of their sadism and they won’t be smirking and laughing anymore. 

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