The U.S. Supreme Court will soon decide whether to strike down Idaho’s near-total abortion ban. The justices heard arguments Wednesday in a case that will likely impact other states.
The Idaho law allows abortion only to save the life of the mother. The Biden administration sued the state, claiming the law violates a federal law called the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act (EMTALA). It was passed nearly forty years ago by Congress and was designed to prevent “patient dumping,” whereby private hospitals at the time would send Emergency Room patients who couldn’t afford treatment to other hospitals that accept poor patients. The law requires hospitals to stabilize E.R. patients before transferring them to other hospitals.Â
Conservative justices pushed back on the Emergency Act argument. For example, Justice Brett Kavanaugh pointed out that when Congress passed EMTALA in 1986 their purpose was to help underserved people obtain medical care, not condone abortion.Â
“We can’t allow hospitals in this country to turn away poor uninsured people in an emergency,” he said. “Their theme is that the law was not designed contextually to deal with abortion or other specific kinds of care.”
Justice Samuel Alito took that argument one step further by pointing
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