Supreme Court Appears Split During Arguments Over Idaho's Abortion Ban
Summary from the AllSides News Team
On Wednesday, the Supreme Court heard arguments regarding Idaho’s abortion ban potentially conflicting with federal emergency medicine statutes.
For Context: Idaho law only allows for abortion in the case of rape, incest, or to prevent the death of the mother. The Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act, or EMTALA, is a federal policy mandating federally-funded hospitals provide “stabilizing care” to patients. The Biden Administration argued that EMTALA mandates doctors perform abortion procedures when required to stabilize the health of a pregnant woman, even if the woman’s life is not at risk. Lawyers for the state of Idaho accused the Biden Administration of overreaching and manipulating EMTALA.
Key Quotes: Justice Sonya Sotomayor highlighted the disparity between the federal and state laws, stating, “If objective medical care requires you to treat women who present the potential of serious medical complications, and the abortion is the only thing that can prevent that, you have to do it. Idaho law says the doctor has to determine not that there’s really a serious medical condition but that the person will die. That’s a huge difference.” Justice Neil Gorsuch appeared skeptical of the Biden Administration’s authority, at one point asking, “Could the federal government condition the receipt of funds on hospitals that they comply with medical ethics rules provided for by the federal government?”
How the Media Covered It: The Hill (Center bias) and the Daily Beast (Left bias) highlighted the questions asked by the female Justices, who appeared more critical of Idaho’s law.
Featured Coverage of this Story
From the Left
SCOTUS’ Women Justices Rip Into Idaho Lawyer on Abortion Law
The women of the Supreme Court—including conservative Justice Amy Coney Barrett—tore into a lawyer for Idaho on Wednesday over the state’s law allowing for abortions only when a woman is at imminent risk of death.
Lawyers for the state and the federal government were before the court to debate whether Idaho’s law contradicts a federal law requiring hospitals to provide stabilizing treatment to patients in emergency condition.
The female justices wasted no time digging in on Idaho’s lawyer, Joshua Turner, asking him about various cases in which women would and...
From the Right
Justices appear evenly divided in controversial emergency abortion case
Republican- and Democratic-appointed members of the Supreme Court on Wednesday appeared sharply divided regarding whether Idaho’s near-total prohibition of abortions conflicts with federal emergency medicine statutes.
The oral arguments focused on whether Idaho’s near-total abortion ban, which only prohibits abortion in cases of rape, incest, or to prevent the death of the mother, is too narrow to cover emergency conditions in which a woman may not be in immediate danger of her life.
Arguing on behalf of the Department of Health and Human Services, Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar argued that...
From the Center
Female Supreme Court justices push back most strongly on Idaho abortion ban
A divided Supreme Court seemed skeptical that Idaho’s strict abortion ban conflicts with a federal emergency care law, but there appeared to be a split by gender as well as ideology during the nearly two hours of argument.
The four female justices, including conservative Amy Coney Barrett, pushed back the hardest against Idaho’s assertion that its law, which prohibits doctors from performing an abortion except when a woman’s life is in danger, supersedes the federal emergency care statute EMTALA.
Doctors face up to five years in prison for...
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