Office of the Attorney General Testimony Supporting Legislation to Protect Access to Emergency Medical Treatment

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03/24/2025

Office of the Attorney General Testimony Supporting Legislation to Protect Access to Emergency Medical Treatment

(Hartford, CT) – The Office of the Attorney General's Special Co-Counsel for Reproductive Rights today submitted testimony in support of legislation to protect access to emergency medical treatment, as well protections for providers offering medically accurate and relevant health care information.

The testimony supports S.B. 7, An Act Concerning Protections for Access to Health Care and the Equitable Delivery of Health Care Services in the State.

Specifically, the testimony addresses Sections 5 to 13 regarding Protections for Patients Suffering from an Emergency Medical Condition and Section 4, regarding Protections for Providers Who Counsel Patients on Reproductive and Gender-Affirming Health Care or Provide Care Necessary to Stabilize an Emergency Medical Condition.

The legislation seeks to establish a state statute equivalent to the federal Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act, which requires hospitals to provide all patients who have an emergency medical condition with the treatment required to stabilize their condition. In 2022, in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, the Supreme Court overturned decades of precedent holding that the United States Constitution protects women’s rights to control their own bodies, including the choice to have an abortion. Since then, states have passed numerous laws both to protect and prohibit access to abortion care. As a result, conflicts have arisen between different states’ laws and between state and federal laws, including EMTALA. Under the Biden Administration, the federal government interpreted EMTALA to set a standard of care and require a hospital to provide an abortion if medically necessary to stabilize an emergency medical condition regardless of whether state law prohibited an abortion to save the health of the patient. The Trump Administration has begun to withdraw from challenges to state abortion bans that may violate EMTALA, signaling a significant shift in the federal government’s position.

S.B. 7 would ensure that access to emergency medical care is protected in Connecticut, regardless of the federal government. The testimony cites a recent enforcement action brought by California against a private hospital who refused to provide an emergency abortion to a woman fifteen weeks pregnant with twins and suffering pain and severe bleeding after her water prematurely broke. The hospital confirmed that the twins could not survive, but refused to provide emergency abortion care due to a “detectable heartbeat.” The hospital provided the woman with towels and bucket, “in case something happened in the car,” and sent the bleeding and suffering woman to drive 12 miles away to another hospital. Fortunately, the woman arrived in time to receive the care she needed. But had the same thing occurred several months later, after the second hospital had closed its labor and delivery unit, the woman would have faced a much longer trip and might have suffered a much worse outcome.

The testimony further supports Section 4, which establishes protections for providers who counsel patients on reproductive and gender-affirming health care, or who provide care necessary to stabilize an emergency medical condition.

Click here for the full testimony.

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