US Supreme Court to allow emergency abortions in Idaho

The US Supreme Court, in a procedural ruling, will allow Idaho hospitals to preform emergency abortions when the health of the pregnant woman is at risk. However, it left key issues unanswered meaning that the case could be back before the conservative majority that overturned Roe v. Wade sometime in the future.

The opinion was similar to the one that was accidentally posted briefly on Wednesday which Bloomberg managed to obtain.

Abortion laws in Idaho

Idaho’s near-total abortion ban took effect after the US Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in June 2022, eliminating the federal constitutional right to abortion.

The state had passed a “trigger law” in 2020 that made nearly all abortions illegal, with exceptions only for cases where the pregnancy threatens the life of the mother or results from rape or incest, with the latter requiring the woman to report the crime to police.

The Biden administration sued Idaho, arguing that under federal law doctors must be allowed to provide emergency abortions when there are serious health risks for the pregnant patient. Idaho claims that there is an exception to save the life of the pregnant woman but doctors say that the language was vague on when they legally could.

The ruling reverses the high courts earlier decision to allow the abortion ban to go into effect, reinstating a lower court’s injunction. It will now play out in the lower courts where there are other similar state abortion bans that are being challenged but have been allowed to go into effect.