(New York Times) – The state said that despite a doctor’s recommendation and state law, a Catholic hospital declined to provide an abortion because fetal heart tones were present.

Officials in the attorney general’s office say they believe this to be the first lawsuit California has filed against a hospital under the Emergency Services Law, which says hospitals have to provide care “necessary to relieve or eliminate the emergency medical condition.” The attorney general said he was doing so partly because of uncertainty about the fate of a similar federal law, the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act or EMTALA, which has become a lightning rod in the national abortion debate. (Read More)