Supreme Court allows, for now, emergency abortions in Idaho

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court said Thursday that it would dismiss a case about emergency abortions in Idaho, temporarily clearing the way for women in the state to receive an abortion when their health is at risk.

The one-sentence, unsigned decision declared that the case had been “improvidently granted,” meaning a majority of the justices had changed their minds about the need to take up the case now. It reinstates a lower-court ruling that had halted Idaho’s near-total ban on abortion and permitted emergency abortions at hospitals if needed to protect the health of the mother while the case makes its way through the courts.

The decision, which did not rule on the substance of the case, closely mirrored a version that appeared briefly on the court’s website a day earlier. A court spokesperson acknowledged Wednesday that the publications unit had “inadvertently and briefly uploaded a document” and said a ruling in the case would appear in due time.

Chief Justice John Roberts announced the court’s decision from the bench, as is the custom for unsigned opinions.

Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, who in part disagreed with the court’s decision and asserted that the justices should have addressed the case on its merits, read her dissent from the bench. Such a move is rare and signals profound disagreement.

The joined cases, Moyle v. United States and Idaho v. United States, focus on whether a federal law aimed at ensuring emergency care for any patient supersedes Idaho’s abortion ban, one of the nation’s strictest. The state outlaws the procedure, with few exceptions unless a woman’s life is in danger.

The decision was essentially 6-3, with three conservative justices siding with the liberal wing, albeit with separate writings and reasoning, in saying they would drop the case.

Idaho Attorney General Raúl Labrador said during a news conference that he remained undeterred. “We feel pretty strongly that we’re going to win this case in the end,” he said, adding that he expected the lawsuit or a parallel case in Texas could reach the justices again.

In her partial agreement and partial dissent, Jackson wrote that she would have decided on the substance of the case and that the federal law at issue, known as the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act, overrides Idaho’s strict ban.

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