Maryland legislature passes bill to protect emergency abortion care

Katharine Wilson, The Baltimore Sun on Apr 2, 2026

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BALTIMORE — The Maryland General Assembly has passed legislation requiring hospitals to provide emergency abortion care when needed to stabilize a patient. The House of Delegates passed the bill Thursday, 96-37, after the state Senate passed the bill in February.

“We have re-instituted a basic protection for women who, regardless of whatever hospital they end up at in the state, and regardless of any religious affiliation of that hospital, can get an emergency life-saving abortion that they need,” said bill sponsor Sen. Clarence Lam, a Democrat representing Anne Arundel and Howard Counties.

A 1986 federal law, called the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act, requires Medicare-participating hospitals to provide emergency stabilizing care to any person. In 2022, following the Supreme Court’s ruling that the U.S. Constitution does not guarantee the right to abortion, the Department of Health and Human Services clarified that the requirement for emergency stabilizing care included acts to stabilize a patient undergoing an “emergency pregnancy-related medical condition,” including performing emergency abortions, regardless of state law. This guidance was removed under the Trump administration in March 2025.

The bill, SB 169, would enshrine in state law the requirement to stabilize patients experiencing pregnancy-related medical emergencies. Hospitals that violate this policy are subject to financial penalties, up to $50,000 for hospitals with 100 or more beds and $25,000 for hospitals with fewer than 100 beds. The legislation now goes to Gov. Wes Moore’s desk for final approval.

“It’s important that people have that right when they’re having a complication, that they can go to whatever emergency room an ambulance brings them to, and have the comfort to know that they will have the same protections,” Del. Lesley Lopez, a Montgomery County Democrat and lead sponsor of the cross-filed House bill, said.

The requirement applies when, without treatment, the patient’s health would be in serious jeopardy, bodily functions could be seriously impaired or body parts could experience serious dysfunction. Medical conditions that may lead to such emergency care could include sepsis, ectopic pregnancies and managing miscarriages.

Anti-abortion groups have criticized the bill for requiring hospitals to perform acts that could violate state requirements for religious freedom. Jeffrey Trinbath, the president of the anti-abortion nonprofit Maryland Family Institute, said some religious hospitals may have to sue the state or close due to the policy. His organization, Trinbath said, is hoping Democratic Gov. Wes Moore will veto the bill.

“We think this bill is a brazen assault on the religious liberty of faith-based hospitals and medical organizations,” Trinbath said. “It will force those hospitals to perform procedures that are against their conscience, and we think that is a violation of First Amendment rights.”

Trinbath added that what is considered to be a serious medical condition under the bill is more open to interpretation than just to protect the life of someone who is pregnant.

State law does allow individual doctors and medical providers to object to performing some medical services, including abortion. The bill would require some other doctor or medical provider at that hospital’s emergency room to perform the stabilizing medical care.

Lam, the bill sponsor, said this part of the state health code means that the bill would not violate the religious freedoms of health care providers. Instead, Lam said, the bill requires emergency rooms to have someone on staff who is willing to provide that service when needed.

The right to abortion and other reproductive freedoms were enshrined in the Maryland Constitution following a successful ballot referendum in 2024. The referendum, approved by about three-fourths of Maryland voters, led Gov. Wes Moore to sign a proclamation in 2025 preventing the state from directly or indirectly restricting the rights to prevent, continue or end a pregnancy.

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