James Myers of OAN
Thursday, June 27, 2024 10:04 AM
The Supreme Court (SCOTUS) formally ruled on Thursday that abortions can still be performed in Idaho in cases of medical emergencies, just a day after the ruling was mistakenly posted briefly and then removed from the website.
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As a result, these cases will now be subject to further review in lower courts, but for now the high court’s decision ensures that Idaho doctors can continue to perform emergency abortions.
On Wednesday, the court mistakenly posted a draft of the ruling on its website, but it was later removed.
The ruling stems from the cases Moyle v. United States and Idaho v. United States, which gained national attention following the Supreme Court’s 2022 decision to overturn Roe v. Wade.
Justice Amy Coney Barrett, joined by Chief Justice Roberts and Justice Brett Kavanaugh, agreed with the Supreme Court’s highly unusual step, saying “the nature of these litigation has changed significantly.”
But Justice Samuel Alito, joined by Justice Clarence Thomas, called the Supreme Court’s decision “puzzling.”
“Recognizing the flaws in the Government’s theory and the likelihood that Idaho would prevail, on January 5, this Court stayed the preliminary injunction pending appeal. And, wisely or not, this Court also took the unusual step of granting leave to appeal before Idaho’s appeal had been heard by the Ninth Circuit. Now, we are denying the writ and, even worse, lifting the stay,” Justice Alito wrote.
“This reversal is puzzling,” he continued. “Nothing of legal importance has occurred since January 5th, and the issue at the heart of this case – whether EMTALA requires hospitals to perform abortions under certain circumstances – is a simple matter of statutory interpretation that has been clearly articulated and thoroughly explained and argued in lower court decisions.”
“In total, we were assisted by reports that totaled more than 1,300 pages and heard nearly two hours of arguments,” he added.
“What needs to be said about the issue of statutory interpretation has probably been said many times before. The issue needs to be decided more than ever. Clearly the court has simply lost the will to decide the simple but emotive and highly politicized issue that this case raises. That’s a shame,” he said.
Additionally, Judge Kentaj Brown said in a separate statement that while he agrees with the Supreme Court’s decision to lift the injunction, he disagrees with its decision to dismiss the cases because the Supreme Court should never have accepted them in the first place.
“These past months of debacle were entirely unnecessary and, more importantly, a direct violation of federal law, the supreme power in our political system,” Jackson wrote.
Meanwhile, Idaho’s new defense-of-life law makes abortion illegal by any medical provider except in cases of rape, incest, or when the mother’s life is in danger.
The Justice Department argues that the Potato State’s law falls short in allowing abortions in more medical emergencies.
The state had argued that “interpreting EMTALA as a federal abortion mandate raises significant questions under the primary issues doctrine affecting both Congress and this Court.”
Supporters of the state’s abortion restrictions cited the Dobbs decision, which allows states to regulate abortion access, and accused the Biden administration of “destroying states’ rights.”
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