(LifeSiteNews) — The state of Idaho continues to resist the Biden administration’s efforts to force emergency room doctors to participate in abortions, filing a legal brief responding to the federal government’s rationale in the case.
In August 2022, the administration filed a lawsuit contending that the federal Emergency Medical Treatment & Active Labor Act (EMTALA) overrides Idaho’s pro-life laws and requires emergency room doctors to commit abortions that would otherwise be illegal under state law. A lower court sided with the White House, prompting the U.S. Supreme Court to take the case and allow Idaho to continue to enforce its pro-life laws until it is resolved.
On Friday, Idaho Republican Attorney General Raúl Labrador, along with attorneys from Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) and the law firm Cooper & Kirk, filed their reply brief with the nation’s highest court, laying out the case that the administration misreads and misapplies EMTALA in numerous ways, including that the law does not require procedures that violate state law, does not mandate services a particular hospital does not offer, and in fact requires hospitals to provide care for preborn children.
“Idaho’s Defense of Life Act is perfectly consistent with the Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act, which provides explicit protections for ‘unborn children’ in four separate places,” Labrador said. “But the Biden administration is trying to use one life-affirming law to invalidate another. The administration’s radical interpretation of federal law is nothing more than a reckless disregard for Idaho’s right to protect life. We are asking the Supreme Court to end the administration’s unlawful overreach and to respect the people of Idaho’s decision to safeguard the lives of women and their unborn children.”
“The Biden administration has no authority to override Idaho’s law and force emergency room doctors to perform abortions,” ADF senior counsel John Bursch added. “There is no conflict between Idaho’s Defense of Life Act and EMTALA. Both Idaho’s law and EMTALA seek to protect the lives of women and their unborn children. The Supreme Court should end the Biden administration’s lawlessness and uphold Idaho’s rightful authority to protect life.”
Current Idaho abortion laws, which were upheld by the Idaho Supreme Court in January 2023, ban abortion at any point of pregnancy for any reason except rape and incest reported to law enforcement, or when deemed “necessary to prevent the death of the pregnant woman.” In the latter case, doctors must provide “the best opportunity for the unborn child to survive” unless doing so would put the woman at greater risk of death or serious injury.
President Joe Biden has vowed to “restore Roe v. Wade as the law of the land again” if the fall elections re-elect him and give him enough votes in Congress to codify a nationwide “right” to abortion, with his administration touting a “whole-of-government effort to protect reproductive rights” (a popular euphemism for legal abortion on demand), including increased taxpayer funding for abortion at home and abroad and attempted waiving of federal safety rules against distributing abortion pills by mail.