Biden is putting abortion politics ahead of health care once again

Vulnerable patients in need of essential medical care deserve treatment that improves their health, but today, such care is becoming a scarce luxury. The Biden administration is imposing radical cultural and political agendas on hospitals, medical professionals and patients, preventing them from providing or receiving holistic medical treatment.

Soon, the White House is set to remove conscience protections for medical practitioners who object to harmful procedures such as abortion. The aim is to strongarm them into administering such "treatments" against their best medical judgment and their beliefs. The administration’s move is just one among many egregious violations that perpetuate medical misinformation and endanger authentic patient care.

Shortly after Roe v. Wade was overturned, the administration issued a federal guidance, challenged by Texas and Idaho, with the intention of forcing emergency room doctors to provide abortions as "emergency treatment." In making this power move, Biden’s team was relying on a dubious oversimplification of the 1986 Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act (EMTALA) in a twisted bid to, as one state attorney general put it, “transform...hospitals and emergency rooms into walk-in abortion clinics.” This revealed once again the White House's prioritization of limitless abortion over the health of patients.

This callous guidance could terminate scores of innocent lives while creating a wedge between emergency patients and the care they need. Giving women the false impression that induced abortion is lifesaving care risks luring them into seeking treatment that can lead to a lifetime of mental and physical harms. But most doctors understand that induced abortion is not medically necessary to save the life of a mother. And despite the administration and its allies' campaign of irresponsible fearmongering, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) already correctly excludes treatment for several emergency complications, such as ectopic pregnancy and early pregnancy failure, from its definition of abortion. Yet the administration attempts to paint abortion as a medical necessity.

When women facing emergency complications show up at life-affirming emergency rooms, they receive timely and exceptional health care. This care is what EMTALA has always required, what pregnant mothers have long benefited from in every state and facility across the nation, and what they continue to receive, including in states with laws protecting the lives of children before birth. These women, however, may soon find that the authentic care they need in their states is undermined by other measures, such as the new EMTALA guidance, driven not by medical wisdom, but by politics.

This year, the Biden team is pushing yet another federal rule that would prevent 3,000 local pregnancy resource centers across the nation from receiving $16.5 million in federal Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) funds. The withholding of TANF funds is at complete odds with the life-affirming mission of these centers, which outnumber Planned Parenthood facilities 14 to one.

Pregnancy centers in states including Missouri and Pennsylvania that currently benefit from TANF funds would no longer be able to provide free ultrasounds, medical exams, housing, clothing and more in conjunction with the program, despite that TANF exists for the purpose of “promoting job training and marriage ... and encouraging two-parent families.” These goals align with these centers’ longstanding mission to support mothers financially, emotionally and physically.

The doctors, nurses and other health care professionals who carefully attend to patients at medical pregnancy centers and in emergency rooms can point to countless stories of women who reap the benefits of their life-affirming care. Jean Davis, for example, was empowered by staff of one such center not only to give birth to her son, but to escape a life of unspeakable abuse, human trafficking and drug addiction. She now works full time to counsel women with backgrounds like her own.

Patients deserve exceptional, lifesaving and life-affirming treatment at every stage and phase of life. Fathers, mothers, grandparents and children are worthy of no less than this. For this very reason, our organizations are committed to sustaining this kind of care, even in the face of politically motivated hostility.

The Biden administration must stop putting its partisan politics ahead of patients’ lives. Together, we can all protect quality medical care for our loved ones. One place to begin is to stand up to the Biden administration’s crusade against life-affirming health care.

Christina Francis is CEO of the American Association of Pro-life Obstetricians and Gynecologists. Chris Faddis is president of Solidarity HealthShare.