On April 24, the U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments for Idaho v. United States, the case challenging the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services’ weaponization of the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act (EMTALA) to force emergency physicians to perform induced abortions on demand. In this case, the state of Idaho challenged a lower court’s decision to enjoin its pro-life law – the Defense of Life Act – which does not allow abortions except to save the life of the mother, on the grounds that it violates EMTALA per a new HHS rule stating that EMTALA requires medical professionals to perform induced abortions as emergency treatment. Several news outlets have erroneously reported that Idaho’s challenge may prevent pregnant women from obtaining lifesaving treatment when facing serious pregnancy complications. In our amicus brief for this case, AAPLOG refutes this lie. In summary, the assertion that induced abortion, the sole aim of which is to end an embryonic or fetal human being’s life, is necessary to treat any pregnancy complication is false. Pregnancy interventions that separate a mother from her preborn child to save her life may be necessary under such circumstances, but they are not the same thing as induced abortion, and Idaho’s abortion law already allows for such lifesaving interventions. Furthermore, the text of EMTALA makes no explicit mention of abortion, but it does treat preborn children and their mothers both as patients deserving of emergency care, which flies in the face of HHS’s attempt to completely disregard the life and value of our fetal patient.
Here’s an important excerpt from our amicus brief:
Efforts to displace state abortion regulations nationwide based on EMTALA rely on a linguistically faulty understanding of the term “abortion” and a factually erroneous description of the nature of emergency medical care. An induced abortion intends to end pre-born life; emergency care intends to save it. EMTALA requires the latter, not the former. By definition, measures taken to save the mother, the preborn child, or both are not considered “abortions” in either common or medical parlance. The effort to blur this terminology is nothing more than a misguided attempt to both normalize induced abortions and to conscript EMTALA into requiring the provision of those abortions nationwide.
You can see the full text of our amicus brief here.
This case is not to be confused with State of Texas v. Becerra, another federal lawsuit challenging the HHS’s weaponization of EMTALA, in which AAPLOG is a plaintiff. You can learn more about this case here, and be sure to stay tuned for the latest updates on it in this newsletter.
