U.S. District Judge James Wesley Hendrix in Lubbock agreed with Republican Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton that the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services' direction was unauthorized and went beyond the text of a related federal law.
The judge refused to enjoin the advice nationwide and halted HHS from enforcing it and its interpretation of the Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act in Texas and against two anti-abortion groups of doctors.
HHS and Paxton did not immediately react to requests for remark.
Hendrix ruled ahead of an expected Wednesday ruling by another judge on whether a near-total ban in Idaho challenged by the U.S. Department of Justice conflicts with the same federal statute at issue in Texas's case.
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The guidance came after President Joe Biden signed an executive order in July to ease access to services to terminate pregnancies after the Supreme Court on June 24 overturned the Roe v. Wade ruling recognizing a nationwide right of women to obtain abortions.
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Abortion services ceased in Texas after the state's highest court on July 2, at Paxton's pressing, cleared the way for a nearly century-old abortion ban to take effect.
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In his ruling, Hendrix, an appointee of former President Donald Trump, announced the guidance went too far in extending that 1986 federal law, which attempts to guarantee hospitals provide emergency medical care for the poor and uninsured.
"That Guidance goes well beyond EMTALA's text, which protects both mothers and unborn children, is silent as to abortion, and preempts state law only when the two directly conflict," he wrote.
The Court concluded in its choice that the guidance extended beyond EMTALA's authorizing Texas by discarding the requirement to consider the welfare of unborn children when deciding how to stabilize a pregnant woman, by claiming to preempt state laws notwithstanding explicit provisions to the contrary and is interfering with the practice of medicine in violation of the Medicare Act.
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The Department of Health and Human Services announced it reviewed the legal decision to choose its following steps. HHS issued the guidance in July, weeks after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that abortion is not a constitutional right.
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The agency mentioned EMTALA requirements on medical facilities to determine whether a person seeking treatment might be in labor or whether they face an emergency health situation — or one that could develop into an emergency — and to provide stabilizing treatment.
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