WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court on Thursday cleared the way for Idaho hospitals to be allowed to perform emergency abortions for the time being, but it left key questions unanswered and could send the issue back before the conservative-majority court.
The ruling was accidentally posted briefly on the court’s website and quickly deleted a day earlier. By a vote of 6-3, it overturns the court’s previous order that had allowed a ban on abortion in Idaho even in medical emergencies.
The 2024 election campaign will focus on the issue of abortion, a direct result of the court’s landmark ruling two years ago that struck down the nationwide right to abortion. But in that decision and another that secured access to abortion medication, the justices avoided broader rulings that would have further inflamed political passions in an election year.
The Idaho opinion does not answer key questions about whether doctors elsewhere can perform emergency abortions – a significant problem since most Republican-controlled states have taken measures to restrict the procedure.
In Texas, for example, an appeals court sided with the state, ruling that federal health care law did not apply to a state abortion ban. Following the Supreme Court’s 2022 decision to strike down a constitutional right to abortion, complaints about pregnant patients being turned away from emergency rooms in Texas immediately skyrocketed, according to federal documents obtained by The Associated Press.
The current case came before the Supreme Court after the Biden administration sued Idaho to allow abortions in emergency situations where a woman’s health is at stern risk.
The justices found that the court should not have intervened in the case so quickly. The majority of the justices reinstated a lower court order that had allowed the state’s hospitals to perform emergency abortions to protect the health of a pregnant patient.
The contours of the issue have changed in the months since the court decided to take the case, Justice Amy Coney Barrett wrote in a concurring letter joined by Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Brett Kavanaugh.
“I am now convinced that these cases are no longer amenable to early resolution,” Barrett wrote, citing Idaho’s changes to its abortion ban and the Biden administration’s clarification that its arguments were aimed at occasional cases.
Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson said the court should decide now, arguing that the previous order meant doctors in Idaho had to watch patients suffer or be flown out of the state for treatment.
“We have had plenty of time to consider this issue,” she said, underscoring her views by reading a summary of her statement in the courtroom. “Doing nothing is problematic for a number of reasons.”
Conservative Justice Samuel Alito, who wrote the ruling overturning Roe v. Wade, also disagreed with the decision to dismiss the case now. He, along with Justices Neil Gorsuch and Clarence Thomas, suggested the court should side with Idaho. Federal health care law “clearly shows that it does not require hospitals to perform abortions,” he wrote.
The early release marked the second time in two years that a ruling on an abortion case was issued early, albeit under slightly different circumstances. The court’s shocking ruling ending the constitutional right to abortion was leaked to Politico.
Democratic President Joe Biden said the court’s order ensures that women in Idaho receive the care they need while the case continues to proceed.
“Doctors should be able to practice their profession. Patients should be able to get the care they need,” he said.
A fresh poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research found that about seven in 10 U.S. adults support providing access to abortion to patients who experience miscarriage or other pregnancy-related emergencies.
Abortion rights groups said the opinion would provide ephemeral relief but leave “devastating” uncertainty about the bigger picture. “This fight is far from over,” said Alexa Kolbi-Molinas, deputy director of the ACLU Reproductive Freedom Project.
Idaho, meanwhile, had argued that its law provided an exception to save the life of a pregnant patient and that federal law did not require expanded exceptions.
The state’s attorney general, Raúl Labrador, said the Biden administration had “overreached” on the issue and he expects the case to end up before the Supreme Court again. “We’re pretty sure we’re going to win this case in the end,” he said.
Kate Daniel, state policy director for the nationwide anti-abortion group Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, called the decision a “setback” but stressed that Idaho’s abortion ban does not conflict with federal health law.
The Biden administration has also appealed the Texas emergency abortion ruling to the Supreme Court, providing another opportunity to revisit the issue. It’s unlikely the justices will even consider whether to take up the Texas case until this fall.
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