The Supreme Court will hear another case Wednesday regarding abortion rights. Protesters gathered outside the court last month when the case before the judges involved abortion pills.
Tom Brenner for the Washington Post/Getty Images
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Tom Brenner for the Washington Post/Getty Images
The Supreme Court will hear another case Wednesday regarding abortion rights. Protesters gathered outside the court last month when the case before the judges involved abortion pills.
Tom Brenner for the Washington Post/Getty Images
In Idaho, abortion is only legal when a pregnant patient is at risk of death. But a federal law known as EMTALA requires doctors to provide “stabilizing treatment” to emergency department patients.
The Biden administration views this as a direct conflict, which is why the issue of abortion is back – once again – before the Supreme Court on Wednesday.
The case began just weeks after the judges’ decision was overturned. Roe v. Wade in 2022, when the federal Justice Department sued Idaho, arguing that the court should rule that “Idaho law is invalid” when it comes to emergency abortions because the federal Health Care Act he emergency trumps the state’s ban on abortion. So far, a district court has sided with the Biden administration, an appeals court panel has sided with Idaho, and the Supreme Court has allowed the strict ban to go into effect in January when she agreed to hear the case.
The case, known as Moyle v. United States(Mike Moyle is speaker of the Idaho House), has major implications for everything from emergency care available in states that ban abortion to the operation of hospitals in Idaho. Here is a summary of the issues.
1. Idaho doctors warn patients are being harmed
Under Idaho law, abortion is only legal when a doctor determines that “the abortion was necessary to prevent the death of the pregnant woman.”
In a court filing, a group of 678 Idaho doctors described cases in which women facing serious pregnancy complications were sent home from the hospital or had to be transferred out of the hospital. Condition for treatment. “It’s only been a few months now that Idaho’s law has been in effect – six patients with medical emergencies have already been transferred out of state for termination,” said Dr. Jim Souza , chief medical officer of St. Luke’s Health System in Idaho, told reporters during a press call last week.
These delays and transfers may have consequences. For example, Dr. Emily Corrigan described in a court filing a patient whose water broke too soon, putting her at risk of infection. After being sent away for two weeks while trying to get treatment, the patient went to Corrigan Hospital. By then, she was showing signs of infection and had lost so much blood that she needed a transfusion. Corrigan added that without an abortion, the patient might have needed a limb amputation or a hysterectomy — in other words, even if she hadn’t died, she might have faced consequences for life on his health.
Idaho’s lawyers are defending its abortion law, arguing that “each circumstance described in the administration’s statements involved life-threatening circumstances in which Idaho law would allow an abortion.”
Ryan Bangert, senior attorney for the Christian legal group Alliance Defending Freedom, which provides pro bono assistance to the state of Idaho, says that “Idaho law allows doctors to make difficult decisions when it is necessary to perform an abortion to save life.” the mother’s life”, without waiting for patients to become sicker and sicker.
Still, Dr. Sara Thomson, an obstetrician-gynecologist in Boise, says difficult calls to the hospital are not hypothetical or even rare. “In my group, we see this happening about every month or two, when this state law complicates our care,” she says. Four patients sued the state in a separate case, arguing that the narrow medical exception harmed them.
“As far as we know, no woman has died because of this law, but it’s definitely at the top of our list of things that could happen, because we know that if we watch death approach and ‘We don’t doesn’t intervene quickly enough, when we finally decide to intervene to save his life, it may be too late,” she says.
2. Hospitals are closing units and struggling to recruit doctors
Labor and delivery services are expensive for hospitals to operate. Idaho already had a shortage of providers, including OB-GYNS. Hospital administrators now say Idaho’s abortion law has led to an exodus of maternal care providers from the state, which has a population of 2 million.
Three rural Idaho hospitals have closed their labor and delivery units since the abortion law took effect. “We are seeing the expansion of what are called obstetric deserts here in Idaho,” said Brian Whitlock, president and CEO of the Idaho Hospital Association.
Since Idaho’s abortion law took effect, nearly one in four obstetrician-gynecologists have left the state or retired, according to a report from the Idaho Physician Well-Being Action Collaborative . The report finds that the loss of doctors specializing in high-risk pregnancies is even more extreme: Five of nine full-time maternal-fetal medicine specialists have left Idaho.
Administrators say they are unable to recruit new contractors to fill these positions. “Since the abortion law was enacted, St. Luke’s has had significantly fewer applicants for open physician positions, particularly in obstetrics. And several out-of-state applicants withdrew their applications after learned of the challenges of practicing in Idaho, citing (the law) and fear of criminal penalties,” reads an amicus brief from St. Luke’s Health System in support of the federal government.
“Before the abortion ruling, we were already 50th in terms of number of doctors per capita — we were already a strained state,” says Thomson, the Boise physician. She experienced the loss of her obstetrician-gynecologist colleagues. “One of my associates retired just as the laws were changing and her position remained vacant – unfilled for almost two years – so my own personal group was understaffed,” she says.
ADF’s Bangert says he is skeptical of the claim that abortion law is to blame for this exodus of doctors from Idaho. “I would be very surprised if Idaho’s abortion law was the sole or sole cause of a doctor shortage,” he says. “I’m very wary of any claims of causation.”
3. Judges could rule on the “personality” of the fetus
Idaho’s brief asserts that EMTALA actually requires hospitals to “protect and care for an ‘unborn child,'” an argument echoed in the friend-of-the-court brief from the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops and a group of states from Indiana. in Wyoming which also has restrictive abortion laws. They argue that abortion cannot be considered a stabilizing treatment if a patient dies from it.
Thomson is also Catholic, and she says the idea that in an emergency she has to treat two patients – the fetus and the mother – ignores clinical reality. “Of course, as obstetricians we have a passion for caring for both mother and baby, but there are clinical situations in which the health or life of the mother is in danger, and whatever we do, the baby will be lost,” she said.
Idaho’s abortion law uses the term “unborn child” as opposed to the words “embryo” or “fetus” — language that implies the fetus has the same rights as other people.
Mary Ziegler, a legal historian at the University of California, Davis, who is writing a book on fetal personhood, describes it as the “north star” of the anti-abortion movement. She says this case will be the first time the Supreme Court justices have considered a law using this language.
“I think we might get some clues about the future of larger disputes over fetal personhood,” she explains, depending on how judges respond to the idea. “Not just in the context of this law or emergency medical scenarios, but in the context of the Constitution.”
The ADF rejects the idea that this case is an attempt to expand the rights of the fetus. “This case turns, at its core, on whether or not the federal government can influence a hostile takeover of the practice of medicine in all 50 states by misinterpreting a long-standing federal law as containing a mandate hidden abortion nationwide,” Bangert said. .
4. Elections are on the horizon
Ziegler suspects the justices will allow Idaho’s abortion law to remain as is. “The Supreme Court let Idaho’s law stand, suggesting that it is not convinced by the Biden administration’s arguments, at least at this point,” she notes.
Whatever the decision, it will put abortion back in the national spotlight just months before the November election. “It reminds us, politically, that Biden and Trump don’t really control the terms of the debate on this very important issue,” observes Zielger. “These will be things that will be put on everyone’s radar by other actors, including the Supreme Court.”
The justices will hear arguments in the case for an hour Wednesday morning. A decision is expected at the end of June or beginning of July.
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