The Supreme Court will allow Idaho doctors to resume performing abortions in medical emergencies, at least while the case works its way through lower courts.
The court ruled 6-3 to dismiss the case as improvidently granted, meaning doctors in Idaho will be able to perform emergency abortions despite state-level restrictions while the case is being litigated. Conservative Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito and Neil Gorsuch dissented.
The ruling marks 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 the appeals court rather than rushing it to the highest level.
Bloomberg first reported the decision, citing an earlier draft of the decision that the Court accidentally published online for a brief period on Wednesday.
The decision reinstates a lower court ruling that allowed emergency abortion care while the case continues. The Supreme Court put that decision on hold months earlier, before hearing arguments on the matter in April.
The case centered on the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act (EMTALA), which requires federally funded hospitals to provide stabilizing care to emergency room patients regardless of their ability to pay. Abortion is the standard treatment for stabilizing many pregnancy-related conditions, and hospitals have long offered this procedure when necessary.
The Biden administration invoked EMTALA in the wake of the Supreme Court ruling that overturned Roe v. Wade. The administration said state laws or mandates that employ a more restrictive definition of an emergency medical condition are preempted by federal law.
The Justice Department argued that the stabilizing treatment could be an abortion if it was deemed medically necessary.
But EMTALA does not specifically mention abortion and does not describe what procedures must be performed. Idaho argued that state law supersedes the federal requirement and states can create an exclusion for abortion if the patient’s life is not at risk.
Idaho allows abortion when “necessary to prevent the death of the pregnant woman,” but not if the patient’s health or reproductive future is at risk due to a catastrophic health consequence, such as loss of the uterus. It imposes sentences of up to five years in prison on doctors who perform the procedure.
Health care providers say state laws contain too much uncertainty and do not protect them if they need to have an abortion. As a result, stories are becoming common about pregnant patients in medical distress who have been thrown out of hospitals or forced to wait in a parking lot until their lives are in danger.
“Everyone is confused and scared, and that hurts patients,” said Jessica Kroll, president of the Idaho chapter of the American College of Emergency Physicians.
Kroll said if an EMTALA violation is enforced, it will be at the hospital level, not the individual physician level. Facilities that violate EMTALA can be fined or deprived of their Medicare and Medicaid funding.
Idaho’s abortion law criminalizes individual doctors, she said.
This story originally appeared on thehill.com read the full story
