Supreme Court Spurns Biden Administration in Texas Abortion Case

The US Supreme Court rebuffed the Biden administration in an abortion clash, leaving intact an appeals court decision favoring Texas in a fight over the availability of the procedure in hospital emergency rooms.

The 5th US Circuit Court of Appeals said Texas, which has a broad abortion ban, wasn’t bound by a Department of Health and Human Services memorandum requiring hospitals to offer the procedure on an emergency basis to protect a mother’s health. The administration had asked the high court to order reconsideration of that ruling.

Texas allows abortion when needed to avoid a serious health consequence, so it isn’t clear the case will have significant practical consequences. The fight nonetheless carries symbolic importance in the weeks before a national election in which abortion is likely to be a key issue.

The case bears similarities to an Idaho case the court considered and then sidestepped in its most recent term. The underlying legal question is whether the US Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act overrides state abortion bans when someone shows up at a hospital with a medical emergency. EMTALA as the 1986 law is known, requires hospitals receiving federal funds to provide stabilizing care to patients.

Unlike in the Idaho case, which started when the administration took that state to court, the latest dispute stems from a lawsuit filed by Texas seeking to preemptively block the HHS memorandum. A federal district judge and the 5th Circuit then ruled that HHS exceeded its authority and took procedural shortcuts when it issued the memorandum.

The administration sought reconsideration in light of the Supreme Court’s decision backing out of the Idaho case, its June 13 ruling saying doctors and organizations couldn’t challenge the availability of the abortion drug mifepristone and a recent Texas Supreme Court decision interpreting the state law’s health exception.

Texas urged the justices to leave the appeals court ruling intact.

The conservative-dominated 5th Circuit has become the favorite appeals court for Republican-run states and right-wing groups to press ideologically divisive cases.

The case is Becerra v. Texas, 23-1076.

To contact the reporter on this story:
Greg Stohr in Washington at gstohr@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story:
Elizabeth Wasserman at ewasserman2@bloomberg.net

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