Justice Samuel Alito asked Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar why the statute the government argues mandates emergency room doctors to perform abortions in a state that bans them uses the phrase “unborn child.”
The Supreme Court heard oral arguments Wednesday in Moyle v. United States, the Biden administration’s challenge to Idaho’s Defense of Life Act, which prohibits abortion except when necessary to save the life of the mother and in cases of rape or incest.
The Department of Justice (DOJ) sued the state not long after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022, arguing Idaho’s law prevents emergency room doctors from providing abortions in certain circumstances required under the federal Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act’s (EMTALA) definition of emergency “stabilizing care.”
