US Supreme Court defines right to emergency abortion

By a vote of 6 to 3, the conservative-majority Supreme Court voted to allow health care workers in Idaho to perform abortions on emergency patients, despite the state's strict rules.

On Wednesday, a document was posted on HD's website calling for judges to vote in favor of emergency abortion rights, but it was removed shortly after.

According to the first With an amendment to the constitution, state-funded hospitals are obligated to provide stabilization care to patients who need emergency care, or alternatively transfer them to a front desk that can help them.

The case concerns whether Idaho violated that law when the state imposed a near-total ban on abortion. Two years ago, the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade—the ruling that gave Americans the constitutional right to abortion up to the 24th week of pregnancy. Shortly thereafter, Idaho enacted its own strict rules.

The state is one of 14 states nationwide that ban the procedure in the vast majority of cases, according to The New York Times. Health care professionals said state law restricts them from treating women with severe conditions who are unable to give birth to healthy babies. Instead, patients had to wait for care for several days or be transferred to another state, he writes Bloomberg.

In 2022, the Biden administration filed a lawsuit. Idaho, reports Washington PostThe state has been accused of violating the Constitution when it imposed its ban on nearly all abortions. Doctors who perform the procedure risk up to five years in prison. The White House has also argued that the abortion laws have created confusion among patients and health care professionals and delayed life-saving care.

Since then, the case went through several courts before finally reaching the Supreme Court. In doing so, HD affirms an earlier lower court ruling that a state hospital must perform emergency abortions to protect the mother's health.

But the decision is only temporary. The justices did not rule on the merits of the case itself, but allowed Idaho hospitals to perform emergency abortions without risking prosecution. In the meantime, litigation over emergency medical care continues in Idaho, and there are many signs that the Supreme Court may eventually decide the matter.

“Today’s decision is not a victory for pregnant patients in Idaho, it is a delay,” Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson wrote in a statement, adding that she wished HD had addressed the actual issue instead of dismissing the case.

Reports say that the decision is expected to affect many other states that have strict rules against this procedure The New York Times.

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