SCOTUS: Idaho Can Enforce Its Abortion Ban, Even in Medical Emergencies

The Supreme Court on Friday allowed Idaho to enforce its strict abortion ban, even in medical emergencies, while a legal fight continues. The justices said they would hear arguments in April and put on hold a lower court ruling that had blocked the Idaho law in hospital emergencies, based on a lawsuit filed by the Biden administration, per the AP. The Idaho case gives the court its second major abortion dispute since the justices in 2022 overturned Roe v. Wade and allowed states to severely restrict or ban abortion. The court also in the coming months is hearing a challenge to the Food and Drug Administration’s rules for obtaining mifepristone, one of two medications used in the most common method of abortion in the United States.

In the case over hospital emergencies, the Biden administration has argued that hospitals that receive Medicare funds are required by federal law to provide emergency care, potentially including abortion, no matter if there’s a state law banning abortion. The administration issued guidance about the federal law, the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act, or EMTALA, two weeks after the high court ruling in 2022. The Democratic administration sued Idaho a month later. US District Judge B. Lynn Winmill in Idaho agreed with the administration. But in a separate case in Texas, a judge sided with the state. In a statement Friday night, President Biden objected to the high court’s decision and said his administration “will continue to defend a woman’s ability to access emergency care under federal law.”

Idaho makes it a crime with a prison term of up to five years for anyone who performs or assists in an abortion. The administration argues that EMTALA requires health care providers to perform abortions for emergency room patients when needed to treat an emergency medical condition, even if doing so might conflict with a state’s abortion restrictions. Those conditions include severe bleeding, preeclampsia, and certain pregnancy-related infections. “For certain medical emergencies, abortion care is the necessary stabilizing treatment,” Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar wrote in an administration filing at the Supreme Court.

The state argued that the administration was misusing a law intended to prevent hospitals from dumping patients and imposing “a federal abortion mandate” on states. “EMTALA says nothing about abortion,” Idaho Attorney General Raul Labrador told the court in a brief. Just Tuesday, the federal appeals court in New Orleans came to the same conclusion as Labrador. A three-judge panel ruled that the administration cannot use EMTALA to require hospitals in Texas to provide abortions for women whose lives are at risk due to pregnancy. Two of the three judges are appointees of former President Donald Trump, and the other was appointed by another Republican president, George W. Bush. The justices’ order Friday takes the case away from the appeals court. A decision is expected by early summer. More here.

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