The Supreme Court ruled Thursday that doctors in Idaho must be allowed to perform emergency abortions, at least for the time being, despite the state’s near-total ban on complying with a federal law that requires emergency rooms to provide “stabilizing care” to critically ill patients.
In an unsigned opinion, the court found that stays of review were “thoughtlessly granted” in two cases involving the law, reversing an injunction the court granted earlier this year. The cases continue to be heard on the merits in lower courts and may return to the Supreme Court in the future.
On Wednesday, the court accidentally published a draft opinion on its website before deleting it. Thursday’s opinion appears very similar to the accidental draft, with the same conclusion, but with some paragraphs removed from the earlier draft.
The consolidated cases of Moyle v. Moyle and Idaho v. U.S. attracted national attention after the Supreme Court ruled in Roe v. Rogers. Wade was picked up.
In a concurring opinion, Justice Amy Coney Barrett, along with Chief Justice Roberts and Justice Brett Kavanaugh, agreed with the Court’s highly unusual move because “the shape of these cases has changed substantially” since the Court granted permission to review.
But Justice Samuel Alito, joined by Justice Clarence Thomas, called the Court’s decision “puzzling.”
“Recognizing the flaws in the Government’s theory and the ‘high probability’ that Idaho would succeed, the Court stayed the injunction pending appeal on January 5. And then, wisely or not, the Court took the extraordinary step of granting a stay of appeal before Idaho’s appeal was heard in the Ninth Circuit. Now the Court has dismissed the case and, even worse, lifted the stay,” Alito wrote.
“This about-face is puzzling,” he continued. “Nothing legally relevant has happened since January 5.” And the issue at the heart of this case – whether EMTALA requires hospitals to perform abortions under certain circumstances – is a simple question of statutory interpretation. It is clearly set forth and discussed at length in the following decisions:
“We had at our disposal a total of over 1,300 pages of documents and heard argument for nearly two hours,” he added.
“Everything that needs to be said about the question of statutory interpretation has probably been said many times before. This issue is ripe for decision now more than ever. The Court appears to simply be unwilling to adjudicate the simple but emotive and highly politicized issue raised by this case. This is unfortunate,” he said.
In a separate letter, Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson wrote that she agreed with the court’s decision to lift the injunction but not with its decision to close the case.
“This month-long debacle was completely unnecessary. More specifically, it was in direct violation of one of the most important federal laws in our system of government,” Jackson wrote.
Idaho’s new defense of life law criminalizes the provision of abortions by physicians except in cases of rape, incest or the life of the mother.
The Department of Justice argued that the state law does not go far enough to allow abortions in more medical emergencies.
“After my office secured significant concessions from the United States that Judge Barrett called ‘significant’ and ‘crucial,’ the Supreme Court today remanded the case to the Ninth Circuit,” Idaho Attorney General Raul Labrador said in a statement.
“Today, the Court declared that Idaho can enforce its law to save lives in the vast majority of cases while litigation continues. In light of the shift in the federal government’s position, with the Biden Administration acknowledging that EMTALA rarely invalidates Idaho’s law, the Supreme Court asked the Ninth Circuit for review. Judge Barrett wrote that these concessions mean Idaho’s pro-life law “will remain almost entirely intact. The Ninth Circuit’s decision should be simple,” he said.
The states argue that “interpreting EMTALA as a federal abortion mandate raises serious questions under the Big Questions Doctrine that engage both Congress and this Court,” and they accused the Biden administration of “undermining” a “states’ right,” citing the Dobb decision, which allowed states to regulate abortion access.