During a discussion in the US Supreme Court, all four female justices expressed opposition to Idaho's strict ban on abortion. They debated whether the law contradicts a federal emergency care law.
This also involved conservative Justice Amy Coney Barrett, who criticized Idaho’s attorney Joshua Turner for being unclear when he stated that decisions on whether a woman’s life was at risk had to be made case by case, even though the state law is ambiguous about that option. According to The Hill,.
Idaho's law argues that it takes precedence over the federal Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act, which mandates federally funded hospitals to provide stabilizing care — including abortions in rare cases — to emergency room patients regardless of their ability to pay.
The other female justices on the court — Elena Kagan, Sonia Sotomayor, and Ketenji Brown Jackson — asked specific questions about where Idaho establishes the threshold and how close to “death's door” the state law required a woman to be before an abortion could be performed.
Kagan pointed out that under the federal law, if the woman is at risk of losing her reproductive organs, it’s sufficient to trigger the hospital’s duty to stabilize the patient, which all doctors agree on.
Turner contended that the state law takes precedence over the federal law and is not applicable, which seems to be the case.
Sotomayor questioned, “Are you saying that there is no federal law that prevents a state from saying that even if a woman will die, an abortion cannot be performed?”
The male justices seemed satisfied with less detailed questions. Samuel Alito, in particular, focused on the term “unborn child” in the Idaho statute.
[Featured image: US Supreme Court]