Supreme Court Poised to Allow Emergency Abortions in Idaho (3)

The US Supreme Court is poised to allow abortions in medical emergencies in Idaho, according to a copy of an opinion that was briefly posted on the court’s website.

The decision would reinstate a lower court order that had ensured hospitals in the state could perform emergency abortions to protect the health of the mother. The posted version indicated the majority will dismiss appeals by Idaho and Republican leaders in the state without resolving the core issues in the case.

Read the Full Text of Supreme Court Document on Idaho Abortion

Bloomberg Law obtained a copy of the opinion that appeared briefly on the court’s website as the justices were issuing two other opinions Wednesday morning. The copy of the opinion isn’t necessarily the final ruling, given that it hasn’t been released.

The Supreme Court’s press office said the opinion in the case had not been officially released. “The Court’s Publications Unit inadvertently and briefly uploaded a document to the Court’s website,” said Patricia McCabe, the court’s public information officer. “The Court’s opinion in Moyle v. United States and Idaho v. United States will be issued in due course.”

The copy indicates the court is voting 6-3 to lift a stay it previously placed on a federal district court order, with conservative Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito and Neil Gorsuch dissenting.

The district court order is designed to stay in place while the litigation goes forward. The Supreme Court decision would mean a San Francisco-based federal appeals court can consider the case.

Idaho is one of a handful of states that now outlaw abortion except when the mother’s life is in danger. Doctors and hospital administrators say the state’s law has kept them from treating women with serious health risks even if they have no chance to deliver a healthy baby. Patients instead have been forced to wait days for treatment or be rushed out of state.

Kagan and Jackson

The court as a whole doesn’t explain its decision in the posted version, saying that the appeals are being dismissed as “improvidently granted.” That would mean the court won’t resolve broader questions about the intersection of state abortion bans and a federal law designed to ensure hospitals can treat patients who arrive in need of emergency care.

But in a concurring opinion, Justice Amy Coney Barrett said that the “shape of these cases has substantially shifted” since the court said in January it would take up the dispute.

In an opinion joined by Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Brett Kavanaugh, she pointed to what she said was a clarification by the Biden administration about the reach of the federal law. Barrett also said Idaho law had changed since the district judge considered the case.

In another concurring opinion, Justice Elena Kagan said the court’s decision “will prevent Idaho from enforcing its abortion ban when the termination of a pregnancy is needed to prevent serious harms to a woman’s health.”

Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson wrote separately to say that she wouldn’t have dismissed the case, according to the copy that was briefly online.

“Today’s decision is not a victory for pregnant patients in Idaho. It is delay,” she wrote. “While this court dawdles and the country waits, pregnant people experiencing emergency medical conditions remain in a precarious position, as their doctors are kept in the dark about what the law requires.”

Alito said the court “has simply lost the will to decide the easy but emotional and highly politicized question that the case presents.”

Hospital Law

The decision “means pregnant patients in Idaho get the abortion care they need and that’s critical,” said Gretchen Borchelt, vice president for reproductive rights and health at the National Women’s Law Center. “But at the same time, this isn’t comfort to pregnant people across the country. It seems this is leaving the situation unresolved.”

The case is the Supreme Court’s first look at a state abortion ban since the conservative majority overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022. The court on June 13 preserved full access to the widely used abortion pill mifepristone, saying anti-abortion doctors and organizations lacked legal standing to press a lawsuit.

The Biden administration argued that the federal Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act overrides state abortion bans when someone shows up at a hospital with a medical emergency. EMTALA, as the 1986 law is known, requires hospitals receiving federal funds to provide stabilizing care to those patients.

The administration sued just before the Idaho ban took effect in August 2022, and two lower courts had said doctors could continue performing abortions in health emergencies while the legal fight goes forward. The Supreme Court intervened in January, putting the lower court rulings on hold and announcing the justices would hear arguments.

The cases are Moyle v. United States, 23-726, and Idaho v. United States, 23-727.

(Updates with Barrett comment in ninth paragraph.)

--With assistance from Erik Larson.

To contact the reporters on this story:
Greg Stohr in Washington at gstohr@bloomberg.net;
Kimberly Robinson in Arlington at krobinson103@bloomberg.net;
Lydia Wheeler in Arlington at ldavenport15@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story:
Elizabeth Wasserman at ewasserman2@bloomberg.net;
Seth Stern at sstern@bloomberglaw.com

Sara Forden

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