President Biden and senior administration officials welcomed the Supreme Court ruling that will require Idaho hospitals that receive federal funding to provide emergency abortions while the case is being litigated, even as the president and his campaign warned of broader efforts by Republicans. to restrict the procedure.
The court ruled 6-3 on Thursday to dismiss the case, meaning doctors in Idaho will be able to perform emergency abortions despite state restrictions in the interim. Conservative Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito and Neil Gorsuch dissented.
In a rare step, Attorney General Merrick Garland heavy about the decision and described why the Justice Department opened the case.
“Today’s order means that as we continue to litigate our case, women in Idaho will once again have access to the emergency care guaranteed to them under federal law,” Garland said in a statement. “The Department of Justice will continue to use every tool available to ensure that women in every state have access to this care.”
Garland added that under the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act, or EMTALA, Americans are guaranteed essential emergency care, including in situations where a pregnancy puts a patient’s life or health at risk.
The ruling marked a temporary victory for the Biden administration, which has struggled to protect abortion access since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. Wade, two years ago. But rejecting Idaho’s appeal will not resolve the legal issues and will only send the case back to an appeals court rather than rushing it to the highest level.
Biden, Vice President Harris and their re-election campaign quickly sought to link the decision to their broader arguments that former President Trump and Republicans are leading the effort to enact restrictive abortion bans that would limit women’s ability to to obtain reproductive health care.
“No woman should be deprived of care, forced to wait until she is close to death, or forced to flee her home state just to receive the health care she needs,” Biden said in a statement. “This should never happen in America. Yet this is exactly what is happening in states across the country since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade.
Biden also argued that “the stakes could not be higher and the contrast could not be clearer” between his administration’s efforts to protect reproductive health care and Republicans’ opposition to protecting contraception and in vitro fertilization treatment.
Harris, in a statement, directly blamed Trump for the state of abortion access in the country, who was credited with ending Roe v. Wade. Wade through the appointment of three conservative justices to the Supreme Court.
“This decision does not change the fact that women across the country are being turned away from emergency rooms and denied necessary reproductive care due to Donald Trump’s abortion ban,” Harris said in a statement through the campaign. from Biden.
“Ultimately, one thing is certain: the only way to stop Trump’s relentless attacks on Americans’ fundamental freedoms is at the polls in November,” he added.
Trump, the Republican Party’s presumptive presidential nominee, has said abortion should be left to individual states, through legislation or referenda. He called it a “beautiful thing to see” as a patchwork of abortion restrictions are enacted, with some states implementing near-total bans on the procedure.
Biden’s reelection campaign ran an ad shortly after the Supreme Court ruling Thursday featuring Dr. Lauren Miller, who fled Idaho after the state’s abortion ban was implemented.
The one-minute ad, titled “At 2 a.m.,” is narrated by Miller, a high-risk obstetrician. Idaho’s near-total abortion ban also includes penalties for doctors.
The Bidein campaign is also expected to run another abortion-focused ad during the first presidential debate against Trump on Thursday night, a source familiar with the planning told The Hill.
This story originally appeared on thehill.com read the full story
