Supreme Court EMTALA decision unintentionally released
Case apparently will head back to Circuit Court, legal battle continues
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 if the opinion was in its final form.
The lawsuit, Moyle v. United States, centers on whether an Idaho abortion ban conflicts with a federal law that ensures universal standards of care within emergency rooms. It was the second significant abortion case this term.
In certain situations, like an ectopic pregnancy, abortions are a necessary procedure to preserve and maintain the mother’s health. Some who have faced complications but who haven’t been adequately cared for by obstetricians may show up in emergency settings to get what they need. The Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act, EMTALA for short, stipulates that emergency staff must provide all required care, including abortions. The Biden Administration challenged an Idaho law known as the Defense of Life Act, which prohibits abortions unless they save the mother’s life.
The judgment, mistakenly posted on the Supreme Court website before it was taken down, had several concurring opinions that showed the justifications differed while the result was agreed upon.
Justices Elena Kagan, Sonia Sotomayor, and Kentanji Brown Jackson concurred in one opinion. Kagan pointed out that the state’s largest provider of emergency services had to airlift pregnant women out of Idaho roughly every other week after Idaho’s ban went into effect.
Kagan later wrote that the decision issued by the District Court can now go to the Court of Appeals.
“Today’s ruling thus puts the case back where it belongs, and with the preliminary injunction in place,” Kagan wrote.
Justice Amy Coney Barrett, joined by Chief Justice John Roberts and Brett Kavanaugh, said the case was not ready for early resolution, as would be provided by Supreme Court judgment.
“In my judgment, it would be imprudent to answer these important questions now,” Barrett wrote.
Much of the reasoning in Barrett’s opinion acknowledged the shifting landscape of abortion jurisprudence and the legal questions surrounding it since the case first hit the dockets.
Justice Samuel Alito was joined in dissent by Clarence Thomas and Neil Gorsuch. He said that Idaho never consented to be governed by EMTALA and that it hadn’t “surrendered” its right to regulate abortion. He also pointed out the antiabortion policies of Ronald Reagan, who had signed EMTALA into law and said no government money should pay for abortions. Alito said that this opens the door for Congress to pay doctors to perform third-trimester elective and “eugenic” abortions, the latter term one I have never read in the hundreds of books I’ve read on abortion law and medicine.
“Today’s decision is puzzling,” Alito said. “Having taken the unusual step of granting certiorari before Idaho’s appeal could be heard by the Ninth Circuit, the Court decides it does not want to tackle the case after all and thus returns the appeal to the Ninth Circuit, which will have to decide the issue that this Court now ducks. What is more, the Court vacates the stay it issue earlier this year even though the majority fails to provide any facially plausible explanation for doing so.”