“Nobody’s suggesting that the woman is not an individual, and she doesn’t … she doesn’t deserve stabilization. Nobody’s suggesting that,” [Alito] snapped.
The justices heard arguments in an appeal by #Idaho ofcls of a lower court's ruling that found that the 1986 US law at issue, the #EmergencyMedicalTreatment & Labor Act (#EMTALA), supersedes the state's near-total #ban in the relatively rare circumstances when the 2 conflict.
President Joe #Biden's admin, which sued Idaho over the #abortion#law, has urged the justices to uphold that ruling.
US Sol Gen #Prelogar, who argued on behalf of the #Biden admin: "the situation on the ground in #Idaho is showing the devastating consequences" of the conflict between #EMTALA & Idaho's #AbortionBan.
"One #hospital system in Idaho says that right now it's having to transfer #pregnant#women in #medical#crisis out of the state about once every other week. That's untenable & EMTALA does not countenance it."
"Earlier this month on the Amicus podcast, Dahlia Lithwick spoke to emergency medicine physician Dara Kass about the health care that happens in the gap between the federal requirement for stabilizing care and the local laws in Idaho and other states that have enacted near-total abortion bans post-Dobbs. Their conversation has been edited and condensed for clarity. You can listen to the whole episode here."
"The Biden administration has sued Idaho, saying that state’s abortion ban violates EMTALA because its exceptions are too narrow to allow doctors to perform abortions if needed to stabilize a patient. Texas, meanwhile, has sued the Biden administration, saying it's using EMTALA as an end-run around state abortion bans to 'mandate that every hospital and emergency-room physician perform abortions.'"
An #Idaho lawsuit before the #SupremeCourt is challenging #EMTALA, the federal law requiring #hospitals to do "whatever they can to stabilize whoever comes through their ER doors with a medical emergency."
This has profound implications for #abortion care, and for this week's Amicus podcast, Dahlia Lithwick interviewed Dr. Dara Kass, an ER physician, about what's at stake.
Tuesday’s ruling, authored by Judge Kurt D. Engelhardt, said the court “decline[d] to expand the scope of EMTALA.”
“We agree with the district court that EMTALA does not provide an unqualified right for the pregnant mother to abort her child,” Englehardt wrote. “EMTALA does not mandate medical treatments, let alone abortion care, nor does it preempt Texas law.”
In case anyone wanted to know where ACEP, the most prominent Emergency Medicine physicians organization in the US, stands on FL SB 1850 (the law allowing people to refuse care to others), I have no idea because I can’t find a goddamn peep out of them on it. They have historically opposed these kinds of laws, but the silence here is deafening. If anyone can find a public response from ACEP, I’m all ears…