The Quickie: Hospital Chain Asked to Clarify Policy on Emergency Abortion Care Services
For Immediate Release: April 29, 2024
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Welcome to “The Quickie” — Planned Parenthood Action Fund’s daily tipsheet on the top health care & reproductive rights stories of the day. You can read “The Quickie'' online here.
In today’s Quickie: As SCOTUS considers emergency abortion care, shareholders ask for more clarity from HCA Healthcare.
HOSPITAL CHAIN ASKED TO CLARIFY POLICY ON EMERGENCY ABORTION CARE SERVICES: Last week, shareholders of the largest for-profit hospital chain, HCA Healthcare, attempted to pass a resolution that would require clarification of the company’s emergency care policy in regard to HCA’s hospitals serving pregnant people in states with abortion bans with limited exceptions. The related shareholder proposal notes that “about 70% of HCA Healthcare’s US-based hospitals operate in states that have adopted laws severely restricting access to abortion absent exigent circumstances that often differ from federal statutory emergency abortion exceptions.”
As some state lawmakers still try to restrict abortion — even when it conflicts with federal law — the shareholder proposal also cites that HCA providers “have been struggling with the legality of providing terminations for ectopic pregnancies, incomplete miscarriages, or other circumstances where miscarriage is inevitable, or the health or life of the pregnant woman is in danger” out of fear of legal repercussions against the provider or the hospital.
Last week, the U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments in this case, which could end federal protections for pregnant patients in need of emergency abortion care. Abortion bans continue to devastate access to abortion care, including access to emergency care, and create confusion for health care providers. The Supreme Court must uphold federal law and guarantee patient’s access to emergency abortion care unless the Supreme Court is willing to give politicians the right to put the health and life of pregnant people at risk.
Read more from Popular Information here.