Ted Cruz argued that states should be allowed to ban emergency abortions

Texas Sen. Ted Cruz complained during Tuesday night’s debate against his Democratic challenger, Rep. Colin Allred (D-Texas), that people need to stop asking him whether he will support exemptions to Texas’ extreme abortion restrictions.

Texas has some of the most extreme anti-abortion laws in the country. Currently, the law provides no exceptions for victims of rape or incest, and earlier this month the Supreme Court allowed Texas to continue implementing an effective ban on emergency abortions, including in hospitals.

As it turned out, Cruz tacitly supported a right-wing petition to the Supreme Court that would have effectively stripped doctors of the right to perform emergency abortions in hospitals across the country. Cruz was one of 26 U.S. senators who signed an amicus curiae supporting Idaho’s Republican Attorney General Raúl Labrador in his attempt to override a Biden administration directive requiring emergency rooms to provide patients with the necessary care Providing abortion care.

In the aftermath of Roe v. Wade’s The Department of Health and Human Services issued guidance after the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services death advising hospitals that they were required to “provide stabilizing medical treatment to your pregnant patients,” including abortion care, “regardless of restrictions.” in the state”. The policy was based on provisions of the Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act (EMTALA), a Reagan-era law that requires hospital emergency rooms to treat people seeking care regardless of ability to pay, citizenship or demographics.

“The Justice Department is trying to create protections for elective abortions. “Yet EMTALA does not mention abortion once, and a correct interpretation shows that the law does not require “stabilizing” abortions,” the amicus brief states.

“The Idaho law is consistent with EMTALA in that it does not restrict medically indicated maternal-fetal separations,” the brief continues: “Consequently, the DOJ seeks to create a healthcare exemption for emergency physicians to perform elective abortions, which is not the case. “Consider the unborn child as a second patient and actually directly intend to harm the child.”

While Idaho’s abortion laws provide an exception for cases where the health and life of the mother are at risk, the language of the laws is vague. Doctors in the state have to balance their responsibilities towards their patients and threaten to file a criminal complaint if their justification for terminating a patient’s pregnancy does not satisfy the state government.

The Supreme Court ultimately ruled against Idaho, but earlier this month declined to intervene in Texas, where the state can now enforce a ban on emergency room abortions and continue to threaten doctors — all to the detriment of their patients.

“It is indefensible for Texas women to be turned away from hospitals, to bleed to death in their cars and waiting rooms, and to be found by their husbands,” Allred told Cruz during their debate on Tuesday. “Suddenly the protector of women and girls will be Senator Cruz, who thinks it is entirely reasonable that if a girl is raped by a relative, a victim of incest, she should be forced to carry that child to term and give birth to it.” You think this is completely reasonable, but now you’re going to position yourself as a protector of women and girls. It’s ridiculous.”

The race between Allred and Cruz is too close for the incumbent senator, with some polls giving Cruz only a single-digit lead over his challenger. If Allred manages to make a splash, the race could swing control of the Senate in Democrats’ favor. Texas lawmakers have made it their mission to advance the GOP’s project of stripping women across the country of their reproductive rights, and while women in the state are pushing for the restoration of their bodily autonomy, Cruz himself has no answer. He just wants everyone to stop asking.