The Trump administration rescinded federal guidance that required emergency rooms to provide an abortion

if the procedure would save a woman's life. That guidance issued by the Biden administration in 2022

after O. V. Wade was overturned, argued a law known as the Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act,

or EMTALA, required hospitals to stabilize a patient's

health during medical emergencies, even in states with near total abortion bans.

Yesterday, the administration said the guidance did not reflect President Trump's policy.

For more on how this will affect pregnant women and access to life-saving medical care at large.

We're joined by special correspondent Sarah Varney. Sarah, thanks for being here.

So why was this law known as EMTALA? Why was it implemented in the first place?

What problem was it trying to solve?

President Ronald Reagan signed this bill in 1986. At the time, hospitals were routinely

turning away poor patients, patients without insurance, and turning them away even when they

might have life-threatening medical conditions. So this law was written. It went into effect,

and it said that ERs across the country that receive Medicare payments, which is essentially

every hospital in the

United States, has to stabilize a patient with an emergency medical condition before they can

transfer them. So what did the Biden administration require post-Dobbs? And what is the Trump

administration now saying it no longer has to do? A month or so after the Dobbs decision,

the Biden administration issued a memorandum. It went out to all the hospitals around the country

that received these Medicare funds. And it reminded them that EMTALA was in effect. And that

according to the Biden administration's reading of EMTAL, it meant that even in states that had

very strict abortion bans, that women who presented in emergency rooms with life-threatening

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