WASHINGTON (CN) — Idaho asked the Supreme Court on Monday to take emergency action to put its abortion ban above federal laws requiring the treatment of medical emergencies.
The state claims a lower court ruling blocking its abortion ban creates an emergency room loophole for abortion access. Idaho asked the justices to block the ruling while an appeal moves forward.
“The district court accepted the United States’ revisionist, post-Dobbs reading of EMTALA and enjoined Idaho’s Defense of Life Act in emergency rooms,” Joshua Turner, Idaho’s acting solicitor general, wrote in the state’s application, referring to the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act. “The district court’s injunction effectively turns EMTALA’s protection for the uninsured into a federal super-statute on the issue of abortion, one that strips Idaho of its sovereign interest in protecting innocent human life and turns emergency rooms into a federal enclave where state standards of care do not apply.”
The Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act was enacted nearly four decades ago to force hospitals to provide emergency treatment to patients regardless of their ability to pay for their care. Following the Supreme Court’s ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, the Biden administration clarified the law’s contours around abortion care.
The Department of Health and Human Services clarified that hospitals must provide abortions if a medical emergency requires intervention. The administration also said state laws banning abortions without exceptions for the life of the pregnant person would be preempted by federal law.
Idaho is one of these states, banning nearly all abortions in the months after Dobbs. Doctors who perform abortions in the state face a minimum two-year prison sentence and license suspension with only minor exceptions — if the abortion would prevent the death of the pregnant person, or in cases of rape or incest, which must be proven with police reports.
The federal government sued Idaho to enforce the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act. A lower court granted an injunction against the Defense of Life Act, allowing hospitals to use abortions in emergency care.
A three-judge panel of Trump appointees blocked the injunction, but a majority of judges at the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals agreed to retract the panel’s prior ruling and review Idaho’s total abortion ban en banc.
Now Idaho has asked the high court for emergency action. The state argues the Biden administration interpreted the law incorrectly. Idaho sees the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act as a protection for fetuses — not abortion access for pregnant people in medical distress.
Idaho says its law already allows doctors to take action to prevent the death of a pregnant person so the federal law is unnecessary.
“As the Idaho Supreme Court has authoritatively interpreted the act, this language ‘leaves wide room for the physician’s "good faith medical judgment'’’ as to whether an abortion is necessary to save a woman’s life,” Turner wrote.
The speaker of the state’s House of Representatives joined Idaho in asking the justices for emergency relief.
“Letting the decision below stand would be a sad day for our country,” William Duncan, an attorney from Utah representing Speaker Mike Moyle, wrote in his application. “Americans understandably disagree when a woman should be free to end her pregnancy, but we should agree that the United States is a government of laws.”
The Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act was also challenged in Texas, where a court allowed the state’s abortion ban to prevail.
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