Less than two years after the Supreme Court returned abortion policy to the states by overturning Roe v. Wade, the justices will hear the second of two cases in a month’s span that involve efforts to restrict access to the procedure.
The latest dispute to be argued Wednesday involves the interplay between Idaho’s near-total ban on abortion and a federal law that requires Medicare-participating hospitals to provide necessary stabilizing treatment, including emergency abortion care, to a mother whose health is at serious risk.
Idaho’s law went into effect after the Supreme Court overturned Roe in June 2022 and makes it a felony for physicians to perform most abortions, except when necessary to save the life of the mother. But the Biden administration sued the state in August 2022, arguing its law is unconstitutional and preempted by the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act, or EMTALA.
A federal district court in Idaho agreed and allowed physicians to perform abortions in certain emergency situations.
“We should not forget the one person with the greatest stake in the outcome of this case — the pregnant patient, laying on a gurney in an emergency room facing the terrifying prospect of a pregnancy complication that may claim her life,” U.S. District Judge B. Lynn Winmill wrote in an August 2022 order imposing a preliminary injunction.
A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit allowed the law to be enforced while litigation continued. But the full 9th Circuit, which reviewed the panel’s ruling, reinstated the district court’s order in October.
