by Nate Raymond
(Reuters) – Texas filed a lawsuit against the U.S. federal government on Thursday over the Biden administration’s new guidance for hospitals to provide emergency abortions, despite state bans on the procedure taking effect after the Supreme Court reverses its historic decision Roe v. Wade, 1973.
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton argued in the lawsuit that the US Department of Health and Human Services was trying to “use federal law to turn every emergency room in the country into an abortion clinic.”
The lawsuit focuses on guidance issued on Monday by the department advising that a federal law protecting patients’ access to emergency treatment requires abortions to be performed when the doctor believes the pregnant woman’s life or health is threatened.
The guidance came after President Joe Biden, a Democrat, signed an executive order on Friday aimed at easing access to services that terminate pregnancy, after the Supreme Court on June 24 reversed Roe v. Wade that recognized a woman’s right to abortion nationwide in the US.
Abortion services were halted in Texas after the state’s highest court, at Paxton’s request, cleared the way on July 2 for a nearly century-old abortion ban to take effect.
About half of states must move to restrict or ban abortions. Thirteen of them, including Texas, had “triggered” laws, designed to take effect if Roe v. Wade to be reversed.
(Reporting by Katharine Jackson and Tim Ahmann)
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