WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court inadvertently posted on its website briefly Wednesday morning a version of an opinion that one news report suggested would for now prevent Idaho from enforcing its abortion ban in emergency rooms.
Bloomberg News reported that the court briefly posted an opinion in one of the two cases about the state’s abortion law and its interaction with the federal Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act, or EMTALA.
The court hasn’t announced an opinion, meaning the briefly posted version isn’t necessarily the final ruling. Bloomberg reported that it got the copy that appeared briefly on the court’s website as the justices were issuing two other opinions Wednesday morning, and a reporter later published the document.
The court’s public information office said Wednesday that an opinion in the two cases, Moyle v. United States and Idaho v. United States, had not yet been released. But the statement did acknowledge that one of its offices “inadvertently and briefly uploaded a document to the Court’s website.”
Such a ruling would effectively allow a lower court ruling to go back into effect, which would mean the state couldn’t implement its abortion ban in emergency rooms as the case plays out further in lower courts.