The Supreme Court is set to consider a second abortion case on Wednesday, this time dealing with claims by a Republican-led state that the Biden administration is attempting to wield a 40-year-old federal law as an \u2018abortion mandate.\u2019<\/p>\n
On the heels of a debate over the Federal Food and Drug Administration\u2019s regulation of an abortion pill, the high court will consider whether the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act (EMTALA) preempts the state of Idaho\u2019s newly enacted Defense of Life Act \u2013 which makes it a crime for any medical provider to perform an abortion with exceptions for rape, incest and life of the mother. \u00a0<\/p>\n
The Justice Department argued that the state\u2019s law does not go far enough to allow abortions in more medical emergency circumstances.<\/p>\n
However, proponents of the state law say that the administration\u2019s lawsuit against Idaho is attempting to use a federal statute as an \u2018abortion mandate\u2019 to benefit the president ahead of the 2024 elections.<\/p>\n
\u2018Construing EMTALA as a federal abortion mandate raises grave questions under the major questions doctrine that affect both Congress and this Court,\u2019 Idaho argued in legal filings.\u00a0<\/p>\n
In an interview with Fox News Digital, Idaho Attorney General Ra\u00fal Labrador said, \u2018The Supreme Court made it clear that it\u2019s up to the states to decide what our laws should be and that it\u2019s not for the federal government.\u2019\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u2018But Joe Biden and his administration decided to come straight and sue us in federal courts. \u00a0We are excited to go before the Supreme Court to show that the state should be deciding these issues and not the federal government,\u2019 he said.<\/p>\n
The DOJ said in its response to the high court that while Idaho\u2019s law makes it a felony for a doctor to terminate a pregnancy unless doing so is \u2018necessary\u2019 to prevent the patient\u2019s \u2018death,\u2019 that exception is \u2018narrower\u2019 than EMTALA, which by its terms \u2018protects patients not only from imminent death but also from emergencies that seriously threaten their health.\u2019\u00a0<\/p>\n
However, Idaho accused the administration of \u2018construing the spare phrase\u2019 in the federal law \u2018as a blank slate to be filled with the Executive Branch\u2019s preferred abortion policy collides with multiple statutory provisions guaranteeing emergency medical care for a pregnant woman and her unborn child.\u2019\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u2018It\u2019s clear that the administration is just manipulating EMTALA and that both laws should be able to coexist,\u2019 John Bursch, senior litigator at civil rights firm Alliance Defending Freedom and co-counsel in the case, told Fox News Digital in an interview.<\/p>\n
\u2018If a woman\u2019s life is in danger, Idaho\u2019s Defense of Life Act makes it clear that the women should be treated and helped. Because in that instance, when the mom\u2019s life is in danger, it\u2019s not an abortion in Idaho or any of the other 49 states,\u2019 he said.<\/p>\n
But the White House says that the 21 states enforcing abortion bans are causing \u2018chaos and confusion.\u2019<\/p>\n
\u2018These extreme state laws have caused chaos and confusion, and women are being denied the essential care they need. But these dangerous state laws do not change the responsibility that health care providers have to their patients in emergencies covered by the federal Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act,\u2019 White House spokesperson Kelly Scully told Fox News Digital.<\/p>\n
\u2018The Biden-Harris Administration has long been clear that federal law requires hospitals to offer health and life-saving care to patients in an emergency. The Administration remains focused on working with doctors, hospitals, and patients to make these federal requirements clear while the Department of Justice defends that understanding in the Supreme Court. No woman should be denied the care she needs,\u2019 she said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The Center for Reproductive Rights also filed a lawsuit in September 2023, calling Idaho\u2019s abortion ban \u2018a six-week ban that has \u2018vigilante\u2019-style civil liability provisions.<\/p>\n
The Center filed the suit on behalf of seven plaintiffs: four women who were denied medically necessary abortion care in their home state, two Idaho physicians who provide obstetrical care, and a professional membership organization consisting of Idaho physicians, medical residents and medical students.<\/p>\n
EMTALA is a federal statute signed by then-President Reagan in 1986 after earning bipartisan congressional support, designed to prevent hospitals from turning away indigent patients who are in critical need of medical care and offer the same \u2018stabilizing\u2019 care they would to a patient who could pay or is covered by insurance.<\/p>\n
After the Dobbs decision in 2022, which overturned Roe v. Wade and left states to decide their own abortion limitations, Bursch said the Biden administration, for the first time in the law\u2019s history, used it to impose an \u2018abortion mandate.\u2019<\/p>\n
A district court sided with DOJ and ordered a preliminary injunction of the state\u2019s law. The Ninth Circuit affirmed that decision, which Idaho then appealed to the Supreme Court. Oral arguments are set for April 24.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u2018What the Biden administration wants to do is take this law and turn it into an abortion enclave in emergency rooms,\u2019 Bursch said. \u2018And to the point where even if a patient came in, and they said that they were in critical condition because of a mental health problem, like depression, or anxiety, that would give doctors a carte blanche ability to ignore laws like Idaho\u2019s and take the life of the innocent child, and EMTALA doesn\u2019t say anything like that.\u2019\u00a0<\/p>\n
Bursch added that what he believes is \u2018so ironic\u2019 is that following the Dobbs decision, President Biden himself said that he disagreed with the decision, but that he understood that states operating through the democratic process would get to decide what abortion laws would control each state.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u2018And it was only a matter of weeks later that he changed course and said, \u2018oh no, the federal government is just going to impose this new requirement by reinterpreting EMTALA in a way that it\u2019s never been interpreted in its nearly four-decade history.\u2019<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u2018It is subverting states\u2019 rights. It\u2019s pushing abortion on states that don\u2019t want it, and it\u2019s all blatantly illegal,\u2019 he said.<\/p>\n
Stephen Billy, vice president of state affairs for SBA Pro-Life America, said the administration\u2019s novel legal challenge to a state\u2019s abortion law looks politically motivated ahead of the November elections amid Biden\u2019s dwindling poll numbers.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u2018The Biden administration doesn\u2019t feel like they have any other issue to run on, and it\u2019s clear what they\u2019re going to talk about and what they\u2019re trying to run on. Whether abortion is going to be a campaign issue or not, the Biden administration is going to try to make it one,\u2019 he added.<\/p>\n
Billy cited the Women\u2019s Health Protection Act, which Democrats in Congress attempted to pass last year. It would have legalized virtually limitless abortion nationwide, but ultimately failed.<\/p>\n
\u2018Congress\u2019s opposition to that comes from the will of the people who sent the elected representatives to D.C., and they have very little national support when you look at the polling for the extreme position of the Women\u2019s Health Protection Act,\u2019 said Billy.<\/p>\n
\u2018So Biden turned to executive action, ignoring the text of laws and just trying to use executive fiat to expand abortion on demand wherever you can, and however you can. And EMTALA is just one example of that,\u2019 he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Billy added that he believes the Biden administration is using \u2018fear and scare tactics\u2019 around the issue.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u2018The entire case is basically a claim that women can\u2019t get medical care,\u2019 he said, but noted that every \u2018pro-life state\u2019 allows for a mother\u2019s health exception and allows doctors to act when there\u2019s a medical emergency.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u2018They are trying to use that fear to drive a political agenda and to save their campaign because they don\u2019t really have anything else to run on,\u2019 he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The Justice Department declined to comment on pending litigation.<\/p>\n\n
The Supreme Court is set to consider a second abortion case on Wednesday, this time dealing with claims by a Republican-led state that the Biden administration is attempting to wield a 40-year-old federal law as an \u2018abortion mandate.\u2019 On the heels of a debate over the Federal Food and Drug Administration\u2019s regulation of an abortion <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":18322,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[25],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-18321","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-politics"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18321","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18321"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18321\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18322"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18321"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18321"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18321"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}