SCOTUS appears to post opinion allowing Idaho to offer emergency medical abortions

NPR Washington Desk | NPR

June 26th, 2024

The U.S. Supreme Court in Washington, D.C., on Wednesday. (Tierney L. Cross/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

A U.S. Supreme Court opinion erroneously — and briefly — posted on the court’s website suggests the court will allow abortions in medical emergencies in Idaho, according to Bloomberg News, which obtained a copy of the opinions.

If the court indeed rules in this manner, the decision would reinstate a lower court ruling that allowed hospitals in the state to perform emergency abortions to protect the life of the mother.

It is unclear if the opinion is the final one. If the 6-3 opinion holds, the court will dismiss the appeal from Idaho without considering the core issues in the case. Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito and Neil Gorsuch are dissenting, according to Bloomberg. The Supreme Court is expected to release final opinions Thursday and Friday.

A decision will no doubt abortion back into the political limelight as a major controversy, just months before the presidential election, but the ruling that got accidentally released Wednesday could alleviate some of the hostility to the court fomented by the decision two years ago overturning Roe v. Wade.

Congress passed the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act, known as EMTALA, in 1986 to prevent hospitals from refusing care for uninsured patients or dumping them on other hospitals. The law says that as a condition for receiving Medicare and Medicaid funds, hospital emergency departments must stabilize a patient whose life or health is at risk. And if the hospital can’t do that, is must transfer the patient to a hospital than can.

That was all well and good until the high court overturned Roe. Within weeks, the Biden administration issued guidance to hospitals on how to comply with the emergency care provision under EMTALA, and the Justice Department sued Idaho for barring abortions when a pregnant woman faces an emergency that poses a grave threat to her health, but not an immediate threat to her life.

The posted decision rejected Idaho’s argument that it was entitled to determine how to balance the interests of the mother’s health and the interests of a fetus. The state law made it a felony to provide an emergency abortion for a woman whose organs or future fertility were at risk, but not her life. The state contended that EMTALA was never intended to impose a national standard of care, and it noted that EMTALA in four different places mentions “the unborn child.”