WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court paved the way for Idaho hospitals to provide emergency care Thursday abortionsfor now, in a procedural order that leaves key questions unanswered and could mean the case will soon end up before the conservative-majority court.
The order was briefly accidentally posted on the court’s website on Wednesday and abruptly deleted. By a vote of 6 to 3, it overturns the court’s previous order that had allowed an abortion ban to take effect in Idaho, even in cases of medical emergency.
Abortion is a central issue in the 2024 election campaign, a direct result of the court’s seismic ruling two years ago that struck down the nation’s right to abortion. But in this decision and in another which preserved access to abortive medications, the Authority did not issue broader decisions.
Idaho’s order does not answer key questions about whether doctors can perform emergency abortions elsewhere, a significant issue as most Republican-controlled states have moved to restrict the procedure.
In Texas, for example, an appeals court sided with the state, holding Federal health care law does not override a state ban on abortion. Complaints of pregnant patients turned away from emergency rooms in Texas immediately doped following the Supreme Court’s 2022 decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, according to federal documents obtained by The Associated Press.
The Supreme Court took up the Idaho case after the Biden administration sued to allow abortions in emergency cases where a woman’s health was at serious risk. Idaho had argued that its law allowed life-saving abortions and that the federal government was wrongly pushing for broader exceptions.
But the contours of the issue have changed in the months since the court agreed to hear it, Justice Amy Coney Barrett wrote in a agreement joined by Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Brett Kavanaugh.
“I am now convinced that these cases are no longer appropriate for rapid resolution,” Barrett wrote, pointing to Idaho’s revisions to its abortion ban and the Biden administration making clear that it was not seeking to allow emergency abortions only in rare cases. Both Kavanaugh and Barrett were part of the majority that voted to overturn Roe v. Wade.
Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson said the court should have decided now, arguing that its earlier order meant Idaho doctors were forced to watch patients suffer or be flown out of state for treatment.
“While this court drags on and the country waits, pregnant women facing emergency medical issues remain in a precarious situation,” she said, emphasizing her point by reading aloud a summary of her opinion in the courtroom. “This court had an opportunity to bring clarity and certainty to this tragic situation, and we squandered it.”
His liberal colleagues agreed with the dismissal.
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said: “No woman should be denied care, wait until she is dying, or be forced to flee her home state just to get the health care she needs.”
Conservative Justice Samuel Alito, who wrote the Dobbs v. Jackson decision that overturned Roe, disagreed with the decision to dismiss the case now. Joined by Justice Neil Gorsuch and Clarence Thomas, he suggested the court side with Idaho. The federal health care law “shows conclusively that it does not require hospitals to perform abortions,” he wrote.
The premature release of the opinion marks the second time in two years that a decision on abortion has been issued early, although under different circumstances. The court’s landmark ruling ending the constitutional right to abortion has been leaked to Politico.
President Joe Biden said the court order issued Wednesday ensures Idaho women can get the care they need while the case continues to unfold.
“Doctors should be able to practice medicine. Patients should be able to get the care they need,” he said.
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said: “No woman should be denied care, wait until she is dying, or be forced to flee her home state just to get the health care she needs.”
Attorney General Merrick Garland said the Justice Department will continue to press its case and use “every tool available to ensure that women in every state have access to this care.”
A new poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research found that about 7 in 10 American adults support protecting access to abortion for patients who suffer miscarriages or other pregnancy-related emergencies.
Dr. Kara Cadwallader, a family physician in Boise, said she hopes the decision will help provide appropriate medical care when a patient’s health is threatened in Idaho. She described a pregnant patient whose membranes ruptured midway through her pregnancy, putting her at risk of fatal hemorrhage and sepsis. A hospital in Idaho said it couldn’t care for her because she needed an abortion and recommended she go to another state.
It took the patient two weeks to get an appointment in Seattle, Cadwallader said. Now patients like her can seek treatment in Idaho.
“This is extremely important for those of us who are on the ground and actually seeing patients, because we have shipped these patients out of state unnecessarily for something that we could have easily taken care of for them here, with us,” she said.
Abortion rights groups say the ruling will provide temporary relief, but will leave “devastating” uncertainty over the overall situation. “This fight is far from over,” said Alexa Kolbi-Molinas, deputy director of the ACLU’s Reproductive Freedom Project.
Idaho State Attorney General Raúl Labrador said the Biden administration’s position has changed to be “much more modest” than it appeared when the case was filed . Idaho will still be able to enforce its law in the vast majority of cases, he said, citing Barrett’s agreement.
He still expects the case to go to the Supreme Court. “We are confident that we will ultimately win this case,” he said.
The Biden administration also appealed Texas’ ruling on emergency abortion to the high court, leaving another avenue for the issue to resurface. The justices are unlikely to even consider taking up the Texas case before the fall.
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Associated Press writers Fatima Hussein, Coleen Long and Amanda Seitz in Washington, Darlene Superville aboard Air Force 1, Christine Fernando in Chicago and Hallie Golden in Seattle contributed to this report.
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Follow AP coverage of the U.S. Supreme Court at https://apnews.com/hub/the-united-states-supreme-court.
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