The Supreme Court Left the Door Open for Attacks on Emergency Medical Care
The Supreme Court Left the Door Open for Attacks on Emergency Medical Care
PUBLISHED 7/5/2024 by Sen. Melissa Wintrow
Earlier this year, I watched in horror as my home state of Idaho vehemently argued in front of the Supreme Court, asserting that due to our extreme abortion ban, doctors may not provide emergency abortion care—even if a woman’s health is failing. They were adamant, making it clear that our law only allowed providers to intervene in cases of impending death. Their argument wasn’t just unconscionable; it was in violation of the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act (EMTALA), a nearly 40-year-old federal law that guarantees that anyone can receive treatment for emergency medical condition. Idaho ignored these protections when it passed our oppressive ban, which became the subject of Idaho v. United States.
The Supreme Court handed down its decision last week and vacated the case. This conclusion—at least temporarily—protected a small sliver of the safety net that pregnant patients can count on for care. For the time being, this means that patients in need of emergency abortion care will no longer need to be airlifted out of Idaho, which has been happening since the start of 2024. You would think this decision would be comforting. It is not. Instead of doing what it should have done, which was affirm that pregnant people have the same protections as anyone else, the Supreme Court sent the case back to the lower courts and left the door open for other extremists to bring this argument again.
To understand how we got here—where the justices on our nation’s highest court were debating just how many organs need to fail before a woman can get abortion care—we have to travel back in time several years and nearly 2,000 miles away from Washington, D.C., to Boise, Idaho. When I was first elected to the Idaho statehouse in 2014, the legislature was already whittling away access to abortion care. This reached a crescendo in 2020 when the Republican supermajority passed a total abortion ban that flatly denied abortion care, even to protect a person’s health. The ban was horrific, but we still had Roe v. Wade at the federal level, which prohibited the trigger law from going into effect. Then, in June 2022, Roe fell.
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https://www.instagram.com/p/C8nFH0epO1s/?utm_source=ig_embed&ig_rid=1cbd8099-7b7b-43c1-aba1-a98ff6c0dd69
The bottom line is that antiabortion politicians and organizations were never going to stop at Dobbs. The decision the justices made in this case doesn’t put an end to this nightmare. They chose to leave providers with uncertainty about how to practice medicine and patients confused about what care is and isn’t available. They left the door open for more states to bring cases, asserting that women must be literally dying before doctors can intervene. Antiabortion politicians in Idaho have made it clear that they don’t care about Idahoans’ health and well-being. The legislature has dug a hole that the medical system may not dig out of anytime soon. Government interference in medicine has a chilling effect that impacts the entire system, from primary care to geriatrics. As an elected official who believes the role of government is to improve people’s health and well-being, I will continue to fight against these extreme measures. The courts and state legislatures must do more to protect and expand reproductive freedom nationwide. Personal decisions belong with people, not politicians or judges. Enough is enough.
https://msmagazine.com/2024/07/05/supreme-court-emergency-abortion-emtala/
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