Lawmakers Urge Court to Uphold US’ Idaho Emergency Abortion Win

A federal emergency care law displaces Idaho’s abortion ban to the extent the state law precludes a doctor from ending a pregnancy when it’s necessary to stabilize a patient’s emergency medical condition, Congressional Democrats told a federal appeals court on Tuesday.

The 259-member group led by Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer (NY) and House Minority Leader Hakeem S. Jeffries (NY) said the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit should affirm a lower court’s decision that the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act preempts an Idaho law that could lead to criminal prosecutions for doctors who perform abortions to stabilize patients suffering health emergencies.

Multiple states enacted abortion bans without life- or health-saving exceptions following the US Supreme Court’s declaration that there’s no federal constitutional protection for abortion—and women allegedly are having difficulty getting the care even in states that did, given confusion over the exceptions’ interpretation. The US sued Idaho shortly after the high court’s decision, arguing that the federal law requires the care. Texas sued the government, arguing that EMTALA can’t be read to require abortions contrary to state law.

Federal courts in the states reached difference conclusions, and the nation’s top court recently denied review of a decision allowing Texas to enforce its law even in situations that allegedly would violate the federal provision.

The Democratic lawmakers argued in their friend of the court brief that the federal law requires Medicare-participating hospitals to provide abortion as an emergency medical treatment or risk losing the money. The congressional intent, text, and history of provision indicate that the federal measure was intended to supersede Idaho’s abortion ban in certain emergency situations, they said.

Congress deliberately used broad language in its emergency care mandate, and the text “makes clear that in situations in which a doctor determines that abortion constitutes the ‘[n]ecessary stabilizing treatment’ for a pregnant patient, federal law requires the hospital to offer it,” the lawmakers said. Idaho’s provision making that care a felony is “in direct contravention of EMTALA’s mandate,” they said.

Pregnant Idahoans will be put at a higher risk of death and medical complications if the Ninth Circuit overrules the lower court’s preemption ruling, the lawmakers said. Idaho’s law “forces physicians to wait until their patients are on the verge of death before providing abortion care,” they said, noting that pregnant women with severe health complications in other states that have similar measures have been denied necessary abortion care.

“Federal law does not allow Idaho to endanger the lives of its residents in this way,” they said.

Idaho has said that its abortion provisions don’t stand as an obstacle to EMTALA’s purpose of ensuring that hospitals provide emergency services to all patients, not just those who are able to pay. The government, in an Oct. 15 brief, said EMTALA’s provisions aren’t limited to indigent patients and that state law doesn’t cabin its stabilization requirement.

The Supreme Court in June blocked Idaho from prohibiting emergency abortions pending the Ninth Circuit’s decision.

The Constitutional Accountability Center represents the lawmakers. The Idaho Attorney General’s Office represents the state. The US Department of Justice represents the government.

The case is United States v. Idaho, 9th Cir., No. 23-35440, brief 10/22/24.