WASHINGTON, D.C. (LifeSiteNews) –– The U.S. Supreme Court agreed Friday to add another abortion case to its docket: whether emergency room doctors can commit abortions in Idaho despite the state’s law banning nearly all abortions.
Notably, the court allowed the abortion-restricting law – which prohibits abortion from the moment of fertilization except in cases of rape, incest or when the killing of the unborn child is falsely claimed necessary for the benefit of the mother’s health – to take effect while it considers the case, meaning emergency room doctors will be expected to follow Idaho’s law and not abort babies as the court decides the case. The court did this by placing on “hold a ruling by a federal district court that would require emergency rooms in the state to provide abortions to pregnant women in an emergency,” SCOTUS Blog’s Amy Howe explained.
The case centers around the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act, a federal law that “requires hospitals receiving Medicare funding to offer ‘necessary stabilizing treatment’ to pregnant women in emergencies,” Howe wrote. “In Aug. 2022, in the wake of the Supreme Court’s decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, overturning the constitutional right [sic] to an abortion, the Biden administration went to federal court in Idaho, where it argued that EMTALA trumps an Idaho law that makes it a crime to provide an abortion except in a handful of narrow circumstances, including to save the life of the mother.”
Direct abortion is never “medically necessary” to save the life of a pregnant woman, pro-life doctors have explained. Pro-lifers have criticized the Biden administration’s Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) for reinterpreting EMTALA after the fall of Roe to include a requirement that emergency room doctors commit abortions.
“Hospitals — especially emergency rooms — are centers for preserving life. The government has no business transforming them into abortion clinics,” Alliance Defending Freedom senior counsel Erin Hawley said in a November 2023 press release about the case.
“Emergency room physicians can, and do, treat ectopic pregnancies and other life-threatening conditions. But elective abortion is not life-saving care — it ends the life of the unborn child — and the government has no authority to override Idaho’s law barring these procedures,” continued Hawley, who is the wife of Republican U.S. Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri.
The Supreme Court also announced Friday that it will hear whether former President Donald Trump can be kicked off the Colorado 2024 primary ballot.
The Supreme Court agreed last month to hear a pivotal case which could upend relaxed regulations on abortion pills in the U.S.
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