Hospitals across the country have long operated under the same federal law that says they must treat and stabilize all patients when they have a medical emergency.

But in states that now ban abortions and have limited or no health exceptions to these restrictions, medical providers face an impossible situation. They can administer a medically necessary abortion and violate state law, potentially facing jail time and losing their licenses, or they can decide not to provide the abortion and violate federal law, potentially resulting in the patient experiencing significant harm or even dying.

The Supreme Court is set to hear oral arguments on this legal conflict on April 24, 2024, when it considers Moyle v. United States. This case centers on the federal law, known as the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act, or EMTALA, which was designed to prevent hospital emergency rooms from refusing to treat patients who couldn’t pay.

It is the second abortion case that the Supreme Court will consider in 2024. In the first case, the court heard arguments about regulations that affect the nationwide availability of mifepristone, a pill used to induce abortion.

EMTALA requires hospitals that receive Medicare funding to provide stabilizing care to all patients if their health – or, for pregnant people, “the health of the woman or her unborn child” – is in “serious jeopardy.”

Almost all hospitals in the country get Medicare funding, so this law applies to nearly all of them.

As scholars of reproductive justice, we believe that this case has implications that stretch well beyond abortion and into other thorny issues, like the legal status of a fetus and the ability of state lawmakers to dictate medical care.

Shortly after the Supreme Court overturned the federal right to get an abortion in June 2022 in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, the U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services reminded doctors that they must provide medical treatment if a pregnant person has an emergency medical condition. And if an abortion is the best “stabilizing treatment necessary” to help the pregnant person, they must offer it.

The letter emphasized that this federal requirement applies even if the physician is practicing in a state with an abortion ban that doesn’t include exceptions for the “life and health of the pregnant person.”

At least seven states, including Arizona, Arkansas, Idaho, Wisconsin, Oklahoma, Mississippi and North Dakota, currently have abortion bans that do not include a health exception.

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