In a temporary victory for abortion rights supporters, the Supreme Court on Thursday allowed Idaho to allow abortions in certain medical conditions, overturning a lower court that had barred the state from allowing abortions when necessary to protect the mother while it has a health care law in place almost entirely.
Here is what April Rubin reported for Axios:
The big picture: The court did not resolve the case’s central questions about how state abortion bans and federal directives on emergency health care mesh.
How it works: The case concerned Idaho’s near-total ban on abortion, which allows emergency abortions in order to save a pregnant person’s life, but not to spare them from severe health issues.
- The Biden administration argued that abortions must be allowed in those circumstances, citing a federal law that requires emergency rooms to perform necessary care for anyone who comes through the door.
- But the Supreme Court dismissed the case rather than ruling on the merits of that conflict between state and federal law.
- Lower courts will continue to wrestle with those legal questions — and emergency abortions in the state can continue while that process plays out.
The latest: Thursday’s ruling would allow abortions as emergency care in Idaho, but doesn’t have bearing in other states with bans.
- “Today’s decision is not a victory for pregnant patients in Idaho,” Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson wrote. “It is delay.” She said the issue will return to the court.
- Justices Samuel Alito, Clarence Thomas and Neil Gorsuch dissented from the court’s decision to dismiss the case.
Catch up quick: EMTALA was passed to prevent hospitals from refusing emergency care to patients who couldn’t pay.
- The court vacated its previous stay of a lower court’s ruling, allowing Idaho to enforce its abortion ban even when terminating a pregnancy was necessary to prevent harm.
- Idaho’s largest emergency services provider airlifted pregnant women out of the state roughly every other week compared to once the previous year, Justice Elena Kagan wrote.
