Supreme Court allows for emergency abortions in Idaho

The Supreme Court on Thursday allowed for abortions in Idaho in situations where a pregnant person may face serious health consequences, one day after the court’s draft opinion was mistakenly posted online.

Under Idaho law, abortions are allowed only to prevent the death of a pregnant person.

On Thursday, the Supreme Court dismissed a pair of cases out of the state without ruling on the merits, finding they were “improvidently granted.” With the decision, the nation’s highest court dropped a hold on lower court orders that had allowed for emergency abortions, allowing for the orders to take effect.

“That will prevent Idaho from enforcing its abortion ban when the termination of a pregnancy is needed to prevent serious harms to a woman’s health,” Justice Elana Kagan wrote in a concurring opinion joined by Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson.

The ruling will send the case back to lower courts for further proceedings.

After the fall of the Roe v. Wade decision in 2022 ended the constitutional right to abortion nationwide, Idaho barred people from getting the procedure unless it was necessary to prevent death. The federal government sued, arguing that the 1986 Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act (EMTALA) preempts state law and requires hospitals that receive Medicare to perform “necessary stabilizing treatment” like abortions when failing to do so would cause serious harm to a patient.

In a partially concurring and partially dissenting opinion, Jackson said she would not have dismissed the case.

“Today’s decision is not a victory for pregnant patients in Idaho. It is delay,” she said. While this Court dawdles and the country waits, pregnant people experiencing emergency medical conditions remain in a precarious position, as their doctors are kept in the dark about what the law requires.”

Justice Samuel Alito wrote in a dissenting opinion joined in part by Justices Clarence Thomas and Neil Gorsuch that the court “has simply lost the will to decide the easy but emotional and highly politicized question that the case presents.” He wrote that the EMTALA “unambiguously demands that Medicare-funded hospitals protect the health of both a pregnant woman and her ‘unborn child.’”

It was not immediately clear how closely the decision shared Thursday matched the one obtained by Bloomberg Law after it was posted online Wednesday.

Earlier this month, the Supreme Court unanimously dismissed a lawsuit challenging the Food and Drug Administration’s approval of the key abortion drug mifepristone.


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