Idaho Judge keeps abortion ban from going into effect

District Judge Lynn Winmill rules that federal law trumps the state’s abortion ban. The injunction remains in effect.

In an eloquent opinion, a federal judge allowed abortions to be performed in emergency rooms, holding that a federal law ensuring medical care trumps a state ban.

The case, St. Luke's v. Labrador, pits Idaho’s largest healthcare provider, St. Luke’s Health System, against the state’s Attorney General, Raul Labrado. At issue is whether the Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act supersedes the state’s laws forbidding abortions. Judge Lynn Winmill opened his order that placed an injunction on the abortion ban as follows:

By design, our national government is a government of limited powers. But when it acts within the realm of those limited power, the Supremacy Clause makes clear that the national government is supreme. The Founders correctly perceived that, for our federal system to work—for fifty states with different cultures and priorities to nonetheless come together as one nation—Congress must at times override the states’ dissonant policies. In this, the Supremacy Clause ensures that the tension between national and state government remains productive rather than destructive, that our political differences generate a stronger nation rather than dissolving the country into nothing more than a collection of states. Simply put, when state law and federal conflict, state law must yield.

EMTALA was passed to prevent “patient dumping,” which means they passed undesirable patients to another healthcare facility. That had been happening in Idaho with women who needed abortions. A 2024 U.S. Senate Report showed that one Idaho patient a week was helicoptered to facilities elsewhere to get emergency reproductive care.

Idahoinjunction

450KB ∙ PDF file

Download

Download

According to Winmill’s order, when Idaho’s abortion ban went into full effect for six months in 2024, St. Luke’s Health System was forced to airlift six pregnant patients with emergency medical conditions to neighboring states where they could receive the appropriate care.

Idaho’s Defense of Life Act criminalizes abortion in nearly all circumstances. When a pregnant woman experiences a medical emergency, a health care provider may perform an abortion only when “necessary to prevent the death of the pregnant woman.”

An abortion performed to prevent any harm short of death remains a felony punishable by two to five years in prison and the revocation of the health care provider’s professional license.

This legal battle began at the federal level. The Idaho abortion ban was at the center of the Moyle v. United States case that the Supreme Court ruled on in 2024. In an unintentionally released opinion that was unusually divided over legal reasoning, the Supreme Court decided that it would permit hospitals in Idaho to perform abortions in emergency settings.

But the victory was temporary. The judges sent the case back down to the Court of Appeals, where it was to be deliberated upon further before a potential reappearance in the Supreme Court. The case disappeared when Donald Trump’s Administration announced earlier this year that it would file a motion to drop the lawsuit.

Lawyers for St. Luke’s filed a lawsuit in January to challenge the law because they anticipated that Trump’s Administration would drop its case.

Winmill’s recent decision maintains the injunction placed on the law during the phase in which the federal government brought the lawsuit. The plaintiff changed, but the effect is the same. Abortions can still be performed in emergency settings.

I would have reported this sooner, but I owe it to my readers to rely on primary documents as much as possible. I could aggregate news from other news outlets, but that’s not what people pay for. I also attach any documents I track down. The arrest warrant in the Texas abortion case was an example of why a reporter has to rely on primary documents. Otherwise, when one person gets it wrong, every other journalist will, too.