Texas filed a complaint Thursday against a Joe Biden administration directive that authorizes emergency physicians to perform abortions if the life of a pregnant woman is in danger, even if local laws prohibit abortions. The complaint, filed by Republican Attorney General Ken Paxton, accuses the Democratic president of “disobeying” the June 24 Supreme Court ruling, which gave each state the freedom to ban abortions in its territory.
His administration “is trying to use federal law to turn every emergency department in the country into a walk-in abortion clinic,” according to the document. The White House was quick to criticize the action of a “radical and extremist elected Republican.”
“It is unconscionable that a public official would take legal action to prevent women from receiving vital emergency care, a right protected by American law,” Karine Jean-Pierre, a spokeswoman for the Joe Biden Agency, said in a statement.
The Texas complaint follows a Monday letter from Health Minister Xavier Becerra to emergency physicians practicing at federally funded hospitals. Federal law “protects your clinical judgment and the actions you take to stabilize your pregnant patients, regardless of restrictions in place in the state where you practice,” he wrote.
A very political complaint.
If a doctor believes that an abortion is necessary to solve a medical emergency, “he must perform it,” adds the minister. The federal law “aheads” the state laws if they prohibit abortion without exception for the life or health of the pregnant woman, he still assures.
The Joe Biden administration “is trying to get its bureaucrats to force hospitals and emergency doctors to perform abortions,” criticized Ken Paxton, whose state now bans all abortions. His laws, however, provide an exception to save the lives of pregnant women and the complaint filed this Thursday seems above all political.
Half of the states should ban abortion
It is part of a great legal vagueness since the Supreme Court dynamited the right to abortion in force for almost half a century in the United States.
In fact, his decision has made it possible to activate many laws that have been dormant for years, including centuries-old laws, but whose provisions may be contradictory.
So far, a dozen states in the conservative south and center ban abortions and a few limit them to the first six weeks of pregnancy. Eventually, half of them should ban abortions on their land.
Source: BFM TV
