ICYMI THIS MORNING: Senators Murray, Baldwin, Kelly, Join Reproductive Health Care Providers to Speak Out About How Republican Abortion Bans are Harming Providers, Worsening Access to Care
Washington, D.C. – Today, U.S. Senator Patty Murray (D-WA), a senior member and former Chair of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP), issued the following statement on the Biden administration’s launch of a new option on CMS.gov to allow individuals to more easily file an Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act (EMTALA) complaint.
“In this grim post-Dobbs reality where women are being denied emergency abortion care, even when their health and lives are at risk, it’s incredibly important that the Biden administration is doing everything they can to make it as simple and straightforward as possible for patients to file an EMTALA complaint and ensure hospitals are following the law and providing stabilizing care to patients. The last thing women denied emergency health care should have to do is navigate a complicated bureaucracy just to have their complaint reviewed.
“The Biden administration has fought at every turn to ensure women receive emergency health care in all circumstances, but make no mistake, these protections and so many others could very well disappear under a second Trump administration—Donald Trump and his allies will try to ban abortion care any way they can, putting millions of women’s lives at risk.”
Senator Murray is a longtime leader in the fight to protect and expand access to reproductive health care and abortion rights, and she has led Congressional efforts to fight back after the Supreme Court’s disastrous decision overturning Roe v. Wade in 2022. Murray led her colleagues at the outset of this Congress to make crystal clear that Senate Democrats are continuing to fight to protect every American’s reproductive rights and will be a firewall against Republicans’ continued attacks on women’s rights—and that’s exactly what she’s doing now. Murray has introduced more than a dozen pieces of legislation to protect reproductive rights from further attacks, protect providers, and help ensure women get the care they need; she also co-leads the Women’s Health Protection Act, which would restore the right to abortion nationwide. Ahead of the one-year anniversary of the Dobbs decision, Senator Murray led Senate Democrats in seeking unanimous consent on the Senate floor for four common-sense bills to protect women’s fundamental freedoms, and in January she led her colleagues in hosting a “State of Abortion Rights” briefing with women who have suffered firsthand from Republican abortion bans.