Doctors across the country told The 19th that they have struggled to stay on top of the latest developments in abortion lawsuits since the Supreme Court’s decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, which overturned federal abortion protections. That confusion, some said, could stop physicians even from providing legal pregnancy-related health care. Read more … Read more
“EMTALA is currently the only federal protection for patients who need emergency abortions. If the Supreme Court eviscerates that, there is no doubt that people will die,” Northup said in a statement. Read more at Rolling Stone
The Supreme Court on Friday allowed Idaho to enforce provisions of a strict new abortion ban that could penalize doctors who perform the procedure in emergency situations. Read more at NBC News
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
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
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
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
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
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
“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
