Hospitals at center of Supreme Court’s next abortion battle

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The Hill

The Biden administration on Wednesday will head to the Supreme Court to defend one of its primary efforts to protect abortion rights after the fall of Roe v. Wade.  

At stake is whether a federal emergency care law passed 37 years ago trumps state laws that ban abortion in nearly all circumstances.  

 

The Justice Department contends the law requires hospitals that receive Medicare funding to provide an abortion if necessary to stabilize the health of an emergency room patient, regardless of state abortion bans.  

Conservatives say the administration is trying to use the law to create a national abortion mandate for hospitals. They argue federal law doesn’t dictate the kind of care people receive, only that they are stabilized. 

This will be the second time in as many months the Supreme Court has heard an abortion argument after ostensibly returning the issue to the states, and the case represents the latest legal challenge that could reshape access to abortion across the country. 

Unlike an earlier case involving the abortion drug mifepristone, this lawsuit has been progressing mostly under the radar. But it serves to further elevate abortion as an election year issue Democrats want to put front and center. 

The case centers on a federal law known as EMTALA, or the Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act, which requires federally funded hospitals to provide stabilizing care to emergency room patients no matter their ability to pay.  :snip:

[Geee]

SCOTUS shocked by Biden administration's view of federal power over states in ER abortion challenge

To convince the Supreme Court that the Biden administration could use federal Medicare funding to force hospitals to perform abortions in violation of Idaho law, Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar conceived and gave birth to some unusual arguments Wednesday

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Idahoans have chosen to protect life. Biden is trying to stop us.

In his 2021 inaugural address, President Biden remarked, “The will of the people has been heard, and the will of the people has been heeded. We have learned again that democracy is precious.”

Then, a year later, this self-declared unifier sued my state for exercising democracy.

 

Idaho passed the Defense of Life Act in 2020 to protect the lives of women and their unborn children. The law officially became enforceable in June 2022, when the Supreme Court ruled Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization that the people and their elected representatives in the states have the power to pass pro-life laws. Idahoans stand to protect life, and our law is a reflection of their will.

But the Biden administration didn’t care. A couple of months after Dobbs gave this decision-making power back to the states, the administration manipulated a federal law to say we still don’t have that power. The Justice Department sued Idaho, claiming that a federal law — the Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act (EMTALA) — supersedes our own law and in fact even forces emergency room doctors to perform abortions.

[Geee]

Alito reignites fetal rights debate in Idaho abortion case

The Supreme Court justice who authored the Dobbs ruling overturning Roe v. Wade jumped headlong Wednesday into the debate about whether a fetus is entitled to the same rights as a person.