"I'm an E.R. doc. Idaho's argument to SCOTUS reveals an ignorance of what I do."

https://www.msnbc.com/opinion/msnbc-opinion/supreme-court-idaho-abortion-ban-rcna148890

In oral arguments on Wednesday, the state of Idaho told the Supreme Court that the federal Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act (EMTALA) doesn’t protect the actions of emergency care practitioners from the state’s abortion ban — even when abortion is the medically indicated treatment. In making its argument, Idaho made multiple statements that I found troubling, especially as an emergency medicine physician practicing in a neighboring state.

Idaho made multiple statements that I found troubling, especially as an emergency medicine physician practicing in a neighboring state.

EMTALA is a federal law that requires emergency departments to provide treatment for any emergency condition until it is resolved or stabilized. Among other things, Idaho argued that EMTALA’s requirements of stability can be determined by individual states; that because abortion isn’t specifically mentioned in the federal law, this treatment isn’t protected by it; and because the law requires an emergency department to provide treatments that are “available” at that hospital, abortion can simply be considered unavailable because it’s been made illegal.

All those arguments are flawed. But I’ll focus here on what may be the most awful argument Idaho made: that its abortion ban doesn’t conflict with EMTALA, because it allows a narrow exemption if abortion is necessary to prevent death.

There are some beliefs embedded in this argument that gravely misunderstand what we do in the emergency room and the ethics that guide our work.

This defense of Idaho’s law presumes that preventing death is the only outcome that matters to us and to our patients. Such a defense presumes that we physicians can predict with accuracy the single moment when a risk to a patient’s health becomes a risk to that patient’s life. And this argument imagines a world where physicians would, or should, purposefully allow people to be patently at risk of death before intervening.

*snip*