The Supreme Court appears set to allow Idaho physicians to provide abortions when they are needed in medical emergencies, per a version of a court ruling briefly made public Wednesday and reported by Bloomberg .
The court has since taken down the document, but a Supreme Court spokesperson acknowledged to multiple news outlets that it had been inadvertently published. The 19th has not viewed the text and cannot verify if it is a draft of the decision, the final decision or neither. Physicians in Idaho have also not seen the text, said Dr. Stacy Seyb, a Boise-based maternal fetal-medicine specialist, describing the situation as “lots of chaos.”
But if it is similar to what the court ultimately rules, the writing could represent a meaningful — if temporary — victory for health care providers. Bloomberg reported that the court would dismiss the case and return it to lower courts for further litigation. This would lift a temporary stay the Supreme Court had previously issued on a lower court ruling, which blocked the 1986 Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act, known as EMTALA , from applying to abortions in Idaho.
The case concerns whether EMTALA trumps individual state abortion bans. The law requires that hospitals participating in the federal Medicare program provide patients at the emergency room with necessary treatment, regardless of their ability to pay. The Department of Justice has argued that the law requires hospitals to provide abortion in cases where doctors determine it is the needed emergency treatment — and that in those cases, the federal law supersedes state bans.
Bloomberg reported that the published document did not weigh in on the specific legal question of whether EMTALA trumps state abortion bans. But it would, for now, allow physicians in Idaho to provide abortions in a narrow set of circumstances.
Most abortions are not performed because of medical emergencies. While this case has been before the high court, physicians in Idaho have flown patients to Utah — the next closest state with abortion access — to receive treatment.
In the wake of Roe v. Wade’s 2022 overturn, EMTALA has emerged as one of the few federal options to undercut state abortions bans. Dozens of complaints have been filed against hospitals in states with abortion bans, where patients say they were denied care in pregnancy-related emergencies in violation of the federal law.
Practically, those complaints have had limited impact. The government has issued few penalties to these hospitals and has rejected some of the complaints. But the law’s presence has offered at least some reassurance to hospital health care providers faced with caring for pregnant patients in medical emergencies.
Physicians across specialties urged the court to find in favor of the federal government, arguing that without EMTALA’s protection, patients would be unable to get vital health care in dire situations, including miscarriage, stroke and preeclampsia.
“If someone is having a crisis and part of the treatment involves an abortion — or any procedure or intervention that might be deemed an abortion by a prosecutor down the road — that is something we shouldn’t have to think about,” said Dr. Rob Davidson, a Michigan-based emergency physician, previously told The 19th. “When I have a pregnant woman having a crisis, my first call should be to an OB, and not a lawyer.”
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