Texas Sues Biden Administration for Threatening Hospitals, Doctors That Refuse to Perform Abortions

Texas attorney general Ken Paxton sued the Biden administration on Thursday over a memo it sent to hospitals and doctors across the country saying health-care providers are required under federal law to perform abortions in emergency situations regardless of state laws.

The memo warns that health care providers who fail to comply could face legal trouble and the loss of their participation in federal programs such as Medicare and Medicaid.

Paxton’s suit argues that the memo, which was released on Monday, violates the rights of doctors to choose whether to participate in an abortion and interferes with states’ authority to regulate abortion. The complaint says the guidance “forces hospitals and doctors to commit crimes and risk their licensure under Texas law.”

“President Biden is flagrantly disregarding the legislative and democratic process — and flouting the Supreme Court’s ruling before the ink is dry — by having his appointed bureaucrats mandate that hospitals and emergency medicine physicians must perform abortions,” the complaint reads.

A senior Health and Human Services official told reporters on Monday that the new guidance “is meant to remind folks of their federal obligations when they take federal funding,” saying it “in no way mandates a particular conduct.”

The Texas lawsuit, which names HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra as its lead defendant, argues the guidance “includes a number of new requirements related to the provision of abortions that do not exist under federal law.”

White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre dismissed Paxton’s lawsuit as “yet another example of an extreme and radical Republican elected official.”

“It is unthinkable that this public official would sue to block women from receiving life-saving care in emergency rooms, a right protected under U.S. law,” Jean-Pierre said in a statement on Thursday.

Texas abortion law allows providers to perform an abortion when it would save the pregnant mother’s life or prevent “substantial impairment of major bodily function.”

The HHS memo notes that federal law requires doctors to perform abortions if they believe it is “the stabilizing treatment necessary” in an emergency medical situation.

The memo was one of two efforts the Biden administration made this week to bolster abortion access since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade; the administration issued guidance to pharmacies telling them to stop denying patients chemical abortion pills, birth control and other drugs that can be used off-label to end a pregnancy.