Abortion Back At Supreme Court Today As Justices Consider Whether

By On Apr 27, 2024

The Supreme Court will hear oral arguments Wednesday in one of its biggest abortion-related cases since justices overturned Roe v. Wade, as it considers whether hospitals must provide abortions in emergency situations under federal law—even in states where abortion is banned. The court will issue a ruling in the Idaho case sometime before its term wraps up in late June. Idaho’s abortion ban remains in full effect—without exceptions under EMTALA—while the court deliberates, after the Supreme Court let the law stay in effect while it considers the case.5. That’s the number of other states with abortion bans that don’t have health exceptions that allow abortions in cases when there might be a health risk, but not a life-threatening one: Arkansas, Mississippi, Oklahoma, South Dakota and Wisconsin (though that state’s abortion ban is not being enforced). Arizona may also be added to the list, should its 19th century abortion ban be allowed to take effect in June. It’s likely those states, in addition to Idaho, would be most affected by a ruling on EMTALA requiring abortion care.“In its plain inconsistency with federal law, the Idaho Law endangers the lives and well-being of vulnerable Idaho patients, and further limits all Idahoans’ access even to routine OB/GYN care. These devastating effects are directly contrary to the purpose of EMTALA,” medical groups including the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, American College of Emergency Physicians and American Medical Association wrote in an amicus brief to the Supreme Court in favor of the federal government’s position. The physicians argued Idaho’s ban “prevents physicians from heeding the central tenet of the Hippocratic Oath: do no harm.”What other impacts a ruling in Idaho’s favor could have, as health and legal experts have suggested that a ruling saying abortions aren’t required under EMTALA could lead states to refuse other kinds of controversial care. “If Idaho was allowed to do what it wants to do, then essentially that is green lighting states to go after EMTALA for any disfavored population, or treatment or condition,” Sara Rosenbaum, the founding chair of George Washington University’s Department of Health Policy, told reporters on a press call, as quoted by Politico. “Whether it is barring all but terminal emergency care for people with HIV-AIDS, whether it is barring all but terminal emergency care for people who’ve been in auto accidents on the grounds that somehow having access to an emergency department encourages unsafe driving, the list goes on and on and on.”Idaho is one of more than a dozen states that have banned abortion since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in June 2022, abolishing the federal right to an abortion. The abortion bans have led to a slew of reports on pregnant people who have been unable to access care when medically necessary due to state-level bans.