Texas judge sides with AG Paxton in Biden abortion guidance policy

AUSTIN — A federal judge temporarily blocked a federal health guideline that requires hospitals to provide abortion services if the life of the mother is at risk in the Lone Star State.

Texas sued the Department of Health and Human Services in July after it issued the guidance in the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court ruling that deemed that access to an abortion is not a constitutional right.

Under the guidance, federal health officials affirmed that the Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act protects providers when offering legally mandated life- or health-saving abortion services in emergency situations.

When announcing the lawsuit, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton said the federal guidance “seeks to transform every emergency room in the country into a walk-in abortion clinic.”

He added that the guidance forced physicians and hospitals to make a decision between following state law or losing federal funding.

He also claimed that “the EMTALA does not authorize and has never been thought to authorize the federal government to require emergency health care providers to perform abortions.”

“It says nothing about abortion,” Paxton said.

U.S. District Judge James Wesley Hendrix agreed. In his ruling, Hendrix stated that the EMTALA does not mention abortion and the recent federal guidance goes beyond the scope of the act.

“Since the statute is silent on the question, the guidance cannot answer how doctors should weigh risks to both a mother and her unborn child,” the order said. “Nor can it, in doing so, create a conflict with state law where one does not exist. The guidance was thus unauthorized.”

The temporary block stops the government from enforcing the guidance.

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton called Hendrix's ruling “(a win) for mothers, babies, & the TX healthcare industry,” in a Tweet.

The ruling comes one day before the Texas trigger law is set to take effect. The law bans all abortions from the point of conception. It also toughen the punishment for those involved in performing an abortion with life in prison and fines no less than $100,000.

Texas lawmakers have also said they plan to add stricter abortion restrictions come next session, with some saying they want to impose additional civil and criminal sanctions on law firms and businesses that pay for abortions or abortion travel, as well as draft legislation that would allow shareholders of publicly-traded companies to sue executives for paying for abortion care.

Texas Democratic Party Chair Gilberto Hinojosa said in a statement Wednesday that the state’s Republican stance against abortion “is not about being ‘pro-life,’” but “about forcing birth, even if it will literally kill women.”

“Let me be clear: we strongly disagree with this ruling – and we stand with the millions of Texans who have been dealt yet another blow to their fundamental freedoms and bodily autonomy,” he said.