Kansas hospital sued for refusing emergency abortion

[July 31, 2024]  By Brendan Pierson

(Reuters) - A Kansas woman on Tuesday sued the University of Kansas Health System for refusing to give her a medically necessary abortion in 2022, accusing the hospital of violating a federal law on emergency room treatment.

Mylissa Farmer's lawsuit, filed in federal court in Kansas City, appeared to be the first case against a hospital under the federal law for witholding an abortion since the U.S. Supreme Court's June 2022 ruling ending the longstanding nationwide right to abortion.

A spokesperson for the hospital declined to comment.

Farmer went to the hospital on Aug. 2, 2022, at about 18 weeks of pregnancy after experiencing premature rupture of membranes, the lawsuit said. That meant her pregnancy was no longer viable and an abortion was needed to avoid serious complications.

The hospital refused to provide any treatment despite having given an abortion to another patient under the same circumstances only weeks earlier, she said.

Farmer said the hospital ignored its own usual practice because of a state referendum that day on whether to eliminate the right to abortion in the state constitution, and decided it would be "risky" to perform an abortion in a "heated" political environment.

The right to abortion in Kansas was ultimately upheld. However, Farmer was forced to travel to an Illinois clinic to get her abortion, and continues to suffer physical and emotional harm from her experience, according to the lawsuit.

Yard signs in urge residents to vote on an amendment to Kansas' constitution that would assert there is no right to abortion, in Wichita, Kansas, U.S., July 10, 2022. REUTERS/Gabriella Borter/File Photo

Farmer said the hospital violated the federal Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act (EMTALA), which requires hospitals to stabilize patients with emergency medical conditions, as well as a Kansas anti-discrimination law. She is seeking an unspecified amount of damages.

The extent to which EMTALA requires emergency abortions has been disputed since the Supreme Court's 2022 ruling, as Republican-led states have passed abortion bans that often have very narrow medical emergency exceptions. In June, the Supreme Court upheld a lower court ruling that EMTALA overrides Idaho's near-total ban, but litigation over the issue is expected to continue.

(Reporting By Brendan Pierson in New York; Editing by Richard Chang)

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