Idaho Petitions Supreme Court to Block Lower Court’s Ruling Against Pro-Life Law

by Emmitt Barry, Worthy News Correspondent

(Worthy News) – Idaho urgently filed an appeal with the U.S. Supreme Court. This action was prompted by a lower court’s agreement with the Biden administration’s position that the state is required to allow abortions under certain circumstances.

With legal representation from attorneys at Cooper & Kirk and the pro-life legal group Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), Idaho submitted an emergency application for a stay pending appeal. In this application, the state urged the Supreme Court to intervene and prevent the enforcement of a ruling by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals against its pro-life law.

The motion requests the nation’s highest court to promptly suspend the 9th Circuit’s decision, which asserts that the federal Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act (EMTALA) overrides Idaho’s Defense of Life Act, stated the Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) in a recent press release.

In 2020, Idaho lawmakers enacted the Defense of Life Act as a “trigger law,” designed to automatically prohibit the majority of abortions in the event of a Supreme Court overturn of Roe v. Wade.

Idaho’s pro-life legislation imposes penalties on physicians conducting prohibited abortions, except when necessary to save the life of the pregnant woman or under other specified exceptions. The federal government contends—and the lower court concurred—that EMTALA mandates abortions contrary to this law if deemed appropriate by an emergency room doctor, according to the ADF.

“Hospitals—especially emergency rooms—are centers for preserving life. The government has no business transforming them into abortion clinics,” said ADF Senior Counsel Erin Hawley, vice president of the Center for Life and Regulatory Practice.

“Emergency room physicians can, and do, treat ectopic pregnancies and other life-threatening conditions. But elective abortion is not life-saving care—it ends the life of the unborn child—and the government has no authority to override Idaho’s law barring these procedures. We urge the Supreme Court to halt the lower court’s injunction and allow Idaho emergency rooms to fulfill their primary function—saving lives.” Hawley concluded.

Following the Supreme Court’s decision to return the abortion issue to the states in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, the federal government initiated a lawsuit against the state of Idaho. The claim asserted that EMTALA, an ancillary provision of the Medicare statute, supersedes Idaho’s pro-life law. However, as outlined in the emergency application, “EMTALA is silent on abortion and requires stabilizing treatment for the unborn children of pregnant women.”

“The United States’ position conflicts with the universal agreement of federal courts of appeal that EMTALA does not dictate a federal standard of care or displace state medical standards. The district court accepted the United States’ revisionist, post-Dobbs reading of EMTALA and enjoined Idaho’s Defense of Life Act in emergency rooms. The district court’s injunction effectively turns EMTALA’s protection for the uninsured into a federal super-statute on the issue of abortion, one that strips Idaho of its sovereign interest in protecting innocent human life and turns emergency rooms into a federal enclave where state standards of care do not apply,” the application submitted to the Supreme Court stated.

Attorneys from Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) are currently litigating a comparable case in Texas, which is presently before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit. In the case of State of Texas v. Becerra, a Texas district court intervened, preventing the Biden administration’s endeavor to compel emergency room doctors to carry out elective abortions.

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