Two new Supreme Court cases ask if there is a right to medically necessary abortion
A federal law requires most hospitals to perform emergency abortions. The question is whether a Republican Supreme Court will enforce it. Read more at Vox
Idaho
Idaho asks supreme court to decide on law penalizing abortion providers
In its first legal action to protect abortion access after Roe’s demise, the justice department in August 2022 sued Idaho over its law, claiming that it violated the federal Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act, or Emtala. After Roe fell, the Biden administration issued guidance clarifying that Emtala, which requires hospitals that receive federal funding … Read more
Idaho Asks Supreme Court To Let It Fully Impose Punitive Abortion Ban During Appeal
Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra published a memo shortly after the Dobbs decision reminding hospitals that EMTALA requires them to perform abortions as part of emergency stabilizing care. Idaho’s ban prohibits abortions except when necessary to prevent the pregnant woman’s death. Read more at Talking Points Memo
Idaho Banned Abortion. Then It Turned Down Supports for Pregnancies and Births.
Since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade last year, the state’s GOP-led Legislature has disbanded a maternal mortality committee, failed to expand postpartum Medicaid coverage and turned down federal grants for child care. Read more at ProPublica
Appeals court lifts partial block on Idaho abortion ban
The ruling is a blow to the Biden administration’s effort to use a federal law mandating emergency room treatment to soften the impact of the Supreme Court’s decision last year to overturn the federal constitutional right to abortion established in Roe v. Wade in 1973. Read more at Politico
Pregnant with no OB-GYNs around: Maternity care became a casualty of Idaho’s abortion ban
As a whole, the situation has left mothers-to-be in Bonner County to contend with an unexpected consequence of their state’s abortion policy: reduced access to medical care for women whose pregnancies are very much wanted. Read more at NBC News
When a fetal scan showed problems, she fled Idaho for an abortion – now she’s suing
“Idaho’s abortion bans have sown confusion, fear, and chaos among the medical community, resulting in grave harms to pregnant patients whose health and safety hang in the balance across the state,” the lawsuit alleges. “While Idaho’s abortion bans purport to contain ‘medical exceptions,’ these so-called exceptions simply do not function as such in practice.” Read … Read more
Women challenge abortion bans in three states after emergency care denied
Women who say they were denied abortions in medical emergencies have taken legal action in Idaho, Oklahoma and Tennessee, in the latest attempt to challenge abortion bans that, abortion patients and doctors say, prevent people from getting care even when their health is in danger. Read more at The Guardian
Agonising delays for women as Dobbs decision worsens OB-GYN shortage
In conservative states, care delays largely stem from the fallout of the Dobbs decision last summer when the supreme court revoked the constitutional right to abortion. Facing possible lawsuits for providing abortion care, OB-GYNs in Texas, Florida, Idaho and elsewhere are choosing to relocate to more liberal states, while medical students are opting for other … Read more
No OB-GYNs left in town: what came after Idaho’s assault on abortion
Across Idaho, doctors are leaving, looking for states where politics don’t dictate how they practice medicine. The consequences of Idaho’s anti-choice laws hit Sandpoint fast and hard, hollowing out medical care for women within months. For years, the town had a maternity ward that delivered as many as 350 babies every year – now it … Read more