Texas is suing the US federal government over new guidance from the Biden administration directing hospitals to provide emergency abortions, regardless of state bans on the procedure that came into effect in the wake of the US Supreme Court's reversal of its landmark 1973 Roe v Wade decision.
Abortion services ceased in Texas this month at the urging of Attorney General Ken Paxton. Photo: AFP
Republican Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton in the lawsuit argued the US Department of Health and Human Services was trying to "use federal law to transform every emergency room in the country into a walk-in abortion clinic".
The lawsuit focused on guidance issued on Monday advising that a federal law protecting patients' access to emergency treatment requires performing abortions when doctors believe a pregnant woman's life or health is threatened.
The guidance came after President Joe Biden, a Democrat, signed an executive order seeking to ease access to services to terminate pregnancies after the Supreme Court on 24 June overturned the Roe v Wade ruling recognising a nationwide right of women to obtain abortions.
Abortion services ceased in Texas after the state's highest court on 2 July, at Paxton's urging, cleared the way for a nearly century-old abortion ban to take effect.
The Department of Health and Human Services said the guidance from its US Centres for Medicare and Medicaid Services agency did not constitute new policy but merely reminded doctors of their obligations under the Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labour Act.
But in the lawsuit filed in Lubbock, the Republican-led state of Texas argued that federal law has never authorised the federal government to compel doctors and hospitals to perform abortions and that the guidance was unlawful.
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre in a statement called it "unthinkable that this public official would sue to block women from receiving life-saving care in emergency rooms, a right protected under US law".
About half the states in the US are expected to move to restrict or ban abortions. Thirteen states, including Texas, had so-called "trigger" laws on the books designed to snap into effect if Roe v Wade was overturned.
- Reuters