Project 2025 Tracker / What’s done, what’s next

14. Department of Health and Human Services · Notable

Rescind the EMTALA abortion guidance

Partially done

474 14. Department of Health and Human Services

“HHS should rescind the guidance and end CMS and state agency investigations into cases of alleged refusals to perform abortions.”

What has happened

  1. Partially done

    The second limb was refused in terms, which is what holds this at `partial` rather than `done`. The CMS press release announcing the rescission — previously a lead, opened in full on 2026-09-06 — says that "CMS will continue to enforce EMTALA, which protects all individuals who present to a hospital emergency department seeking examination or treatment, including for identified emergency medical conditions that place the health of a pregnant woman or her unborn child in serious jeopardy", and that CMS "will work to rectify any perceived legal confusion and instability created by the former administration's actions". Nothing in it ends an investigation, and no allowlisted record shows CMS or any state survey agency closing an investigation into an alleged refusal to perform an abortion. Secretary Kennedy's letter to health care providers of 2025-06-13 — still not located on an allowlisted host — is described by OCR's own Federal Register notice as having "also made clear this commitment", i.e. the commitment to continued enforcement, so the one document not yet read points the same way.

  2. Partially done

    CMS rescinded the 2021 and 2022 CMS EMTALA guidance (QSO-21-22-Hospitals and QSO-22-22-Hospitals) and the accompanying letter from Secretary Becerra on 2025-05-29. The guidance limb of the ask is delivered, and CMS's own memo page now carries it directly: "Memo # QSO-21-22-Hospitals-RESCINDED as of 05/29/2025", posted 2025-05-30, rescinded "consistent with Administration policy and Executive Order 14192".

Research log

What was searched, and what didn’t count as evidence

Research notes

  • The rescission itself is not in the Federal Register. The dated Primary record is HHS OCR’s notice Rescission of Guidance on Nondiscrimination Protections Under the Church Amendments (FR 2026-01435), read in full at https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/FR-2026-01-26/html/2026-01435.htm. Its Deregulation Item 1 narrative states that the 2022 CMS EMTALA Guidance and the accompanying Secretary letter “was preliminarily and partially enjoined on August 23, 2022, and it was rescinded on May 29, 2025”, and that “On June 3, 2025, HHS and the CMS announced the rescission of the 2021 and 2022 CMS EMTALA Guidance, QSO-21-22-Hospitals, and QSO-2222-Hospitals … and a related letter from the then-Secretary of HHS.”
  • Checked 2026-09-06 — the press release was opened and is now Evidence. cms.gov’s newsroom is not in its sitemap, but the press release is indexed by search engines, and once its address was known (cms.gov/newsroom/press-releases/cms-statement-emergency-medical-treatment-labor-act-emtala) it opened. So did the rescinded QSO memo page. hhs.gov can be read too.
  • Still a lead: Secretary Kennedy’s letter of 2025-06-13 to health care providers. It is not on hhs.gov/conscience’s complete Past Actions list, not in the HHS press room index, and three plausible addresses under hhs.gov/sites/default/files do not exist. The PDF at hhs.gov/sites/default/files/emergency-medical-care-letter-to-health-care-providers.pdf is the 2022 Becerra letter, the one that was rescinded. What the letter says is nonetheless on the record at one remove: FR 2026-01435 states that it “also made clear this commitment” to continued EMTALA enforcement.
  • Leveling: partial. A reviewer who reads the Quote’s second clause as consequential rather than independent would say done; we note it as a close call.
  • The EMTALA limb of #1297 points here; #1306 covers the DOJ litigation limb.
Action
rescind
Object
July 2022 HHS/CMS EMTALA abortion guidance
ID
1305