Supreme Court sides with Idaho in challenge to state’s strict abortion law

The U.S. Supreme Court on Friday blocked a lower court ruling that had upended Idaho’s strict abortion law in a case that’s shaping up as a test of whether the federal government can force emergency rooms to provide abortions in emergencies despite state restrictions.

The justices said they’ll hear arguments on the state law in April.

Idaho bars abortions except in cases where a doctor deems it necessary to prevent a woman’s death in a 2020 law that took effect after the Supreme Court in 2022 overturned the Roe v. Wade decision and returned the issue of abortion to the states.

The Biden administration then sued, arguing that a federal law governing indigent care in emergency room treatment preempts strict state laws, at least for hospitals that receive federal Medicare funding.

A U.S. district judge sided with the feds, then a three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals put that ruling on hold. The full 9th Circuit then stepped in and reversed the panel’s ruling.

Now the justices have forced another blockade.

Idaho said the Biden administration is using the Emergency Medical Treatment & Labor Act, the 1986 law, to try to reestablish a national right to abortion.

The state said in its 36 years, the law has never been used the way the feds are now trying to use it.

The federal Justice Department, in its filing with the court, said it is trying to defend “limited but critically important” cases where abortion is necessary to stabilize an emergency room patient.

Pro-life advocates praised the Supreme Court’s intervention.

“There is no basis whatsoever in this law for forcing doctors to carry out abortions even against their better medical judgment,” said Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America.

But President Biden slammed the court’s move and called the Idaho law an “extreme abortion ban.”

“We will continue to defend a woman’s ability to access emergency care under federal law,” Mr. Biden said in a statement.

He also called on Congress to pass a law establishing a national right to abortion “so that women in every state can access the health care they need.”