Hospitals' Denial of Emergency Abortion Ruled Illegal by Feds.

Two hospitals in Missouri and Kansas violated federal law by refusing to provide an emergency abortion to a pregnant woman who was experiencing premature labor, according to a first-of-its-kind investigation by the federal government. The investigation is a warning to hospitals around the country as they struggle to reconcile dozens of new state laws that ban or severely restrict abortion with a federal mandate for doctors to provide abortions when a woman’s health is at risk. The federal law, which requires doctors to treat patients in emergency situations, trumps those state laws, the nation’s top health official said in a statement.