HOUSTON — Days after President Biden moved to ensure access to abortion in states with bans, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton on Thursday filed charges against federal guidelines he said would “force abortions” in state hospitals.
The lawsuit sparked what will likely be a lengthy legal tug of war between the Biden administration and states like Texas, which have taken swift steps to ban abortion in nearly all cases in the wake of the Supreme Court’s decision to reverse Roe v. to make. wade.
On Monday, the Biden administration instructed hospitals that, even in states where abortion is illegal, federal law required doctors to perform abortions for a pregnant woman who showed up in the emergency department when they believed it was “the stabilizing treatment needed” to resolve a medical emergency.
Paxton said in the indictment that the president was trying to “use federal law to turn every emergency room in the country into a walk-in abortion clinic.”