Why the EMTALA SCOTUS Case Is One of the Most Infuriating Since Dobbs

[In It to Win It]

Why the EMTALA SCOTUS Case Is One of the Most Infuriating Since Dobbs

This week, the Supreme Court will hear a case that could have devastating and widespread consequences for pregnant patients, their families, and their health care providers—yes, even considering where we currently are with reproductive health care in this country. It involves Idaho’s near-total abortion ban, which makes it a crime for the state’s physicians to terminate a pregnancy, even when termination is necessary to protect the mother’s health. As a result of that state’s cramped statutory exceptions for emergency abortion care, a woman showing up to an ER in Idaho could be at imminent risk of losing her reproductive organs, and yet a physician could still not be allowed to end her pregnancy to save them, unless or until she is about to die.

By contrast, right now, a federal law called the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act requires that hospitals that participate in Medicare (meaning virtually every private hospital in the country) provide stabilizing care when the health of a patient is in serious jeopardy. As any emergency physician can explain, sometimes an abortion is the stabilizing care necessary to protect a patient’s health: to avoid loss of reproductive organs and fertility, loss of other organs, permanent disability, severe pain, dire mental health results, and a host of other horrible consequences, including—but also short of—risk of imminent death.

​Before Idaho’s law took effect, a federal district court in the state found that EMTALA and the Idaho law conflict: When a pregnant patient needs an abortion to stabilize a health emergency and consents to receive one, federal law requires that her doctors give her an abortion. The Idaho ban therefore criminalizes what federal law requires. Whenever that happens, the Constitution’s supremacy clause says federal law wins: Under what’s known as the preemption doctrine, federal law is the “supreme Law of the Land” and overrides the conflicting state law. The Idaho court thus temporarily ordered an exception to the Idaho law, allowing physicians to terminate a pregnancy when EMTALA requires it.

​In January, however, the Supreme Court disagreed. Leaping into the case before it was conclusively resolved, the high court issued a stay allowing Idaho’s law to take effect again, despite the conflict with EMTALA, ruling on its “shadow docket” and offering no opinion explaining its reasoning. On Wednesday, in the final week of the court’s term, the justices will hear oral argument in the case. They have an opportunity to undo the harm their earlier ruling has already caused. Their decision will affect the law not just in Idaho but in every state whose laws clash with EMTALA.

[Probatim]

1. How with the Originalists decide?

If the Supremacy clause in this case is overruled, doesn't that open the door to overrule it in just about any future case?

Seems to me the Originalists are going to tie themselves in knots when wording their opinions.

[Hekate]

2. Originalists like Alito will simply find some pre-US Constitution medieval cleric to quote...

…and drag in a 16th century British jurist who sat in judgment on witches.

No cognitive dissonance there.

[Probatim]

3. Continuing his reliance on Pre-Originalists then?

Seems legit to me.

[whopis01]

4. Alito is not even trying that hard

“How can you impose restrictions on what Idaho can criminalize?”
- Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr.


If you do away with the Constitution and Federal Law, then the states can do whatever they want.
You don't have to go pre-Constitution if you are willing to ignore it.



https://wapo.st/4dfzexB

[LymphocyteLover]

5. So outrageous. These anti-abortion people are fucking ghouls and murderers.