Live Updates: Supreme Court to Consider Access to Emergency Abortions
"The case, which could reverberate beyond Idaho to over a dozen other states with abortion bans, is the second time in less than a month that the justices have heard an abortion case.
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The Supreme Court will hear arguments on Wednesday about whether Idaho’s near-total abortion ban conflicts with a federal law that protects patients who need emergency care, in a case that would determine access to abortions in emergency rooms across the country.
The federal law affects only the sliver of women who face dire medical complications during pregnancy. But a broad decision by the court could have implications for about 14 states that have enacted near-total bans on abortion since the court overturned a constitutional right to abortion in June 2022.
It’s a cloudy morning outside of the Supreme Court, where protesters with the Women’s March are taking part in “die-in.” 15 women are lying draped in sheets made to look bloody around the abdomen.
“Pro-life is a lie, they don’t care if people die!”
The abortion case before the Supreme Court on Wednesday centers on a federal law requiring emergency medical care for any urgent condition, but its specific mention of one condition — pregnancy — will matter most.
Lawyers for Idaho say the law’s language concerning a pregnant woman and “her unborn child” supports the state’s defense of its ban that outlaws most abortions unless women would otherwise die. One of Idaho’s claims is that the federal law requires hospitals to care for the “unborn child.”
This case is about when abortions can be provided in emergency rooms: only to save the life of a pregnant woman, as Idaho law says, or to keep a pregnant woman’s health from deteriorating, as federal law says. But the case also has much broader implications that go beyond abortion.
The Supreme Court’s decision could determine how strict state abortion bans can be. At least half a dozen other states have bans like Idaho’s, that prevent abortions to protect women’s health. But other states could make their bans more restrictive if Idaho prevails in the case.
This case has potential implications for states’ ability to restrict other types of emergency care, not just abortion. If the Supreme Court sides with Idaho, states could potentially decide not to require emergency departments to treat people with other conditions, like patients with mental health emergencies or AIDS-related emergencies.
The Supreme Court, which said it was returning the question of abortion to the states in its 2022 decision overturning Roe v. Wade, will hear its second major abortion case in the space of a month.
One of the newest fronts in the abortion debate is a decades-old federal law requiring hospitals to guarantee patients a certain standard of emergency care.
At issue in the case the Supreme Court is hearing on Wednesday is whether Idaho’s near-total ban on abortions violates that law, the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act, or EMTALA, and if it does, whether the state law can be followed instead of the federal law.
Twenty-one states ban abortion or restrict the procedure earlier in pregnancy than the standard set by Roe v. Wade, which governed reproductive rights for nearly half a century until the Supreme Court overturned the decision in 2022.
In some states, the fight over abortion access is still taking place in courtrooms, where advocates have sued to block bans and restrictions. Other states have moved to expand access to abortion by adding legal protections.
In the weeks after the Supreme Court dismantled a constitutional right to abortion in 2022 and returned the issue of access to the states, a new series of court battles began.
After the Biden administration announced it would protect access to abortion under emergency situations through a decades-old federal law, conservative states pushed back, leading to dueling lawsuits in Texas and Idaho."
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