Black Community News News and Commentary for Christians
Abortions are banned in Idaho with limited exceptions. The Biden administration’s illegal expansion of the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act (EMTALA) would strip the legislature’s protection for unborn babies.
Congress passed EMTALA in 1986 to protect ER patients who could not afford care. The law requires ERs that accept Medicare payments to provide a medical screening exam for anyone who seeks treatment and to provide stabilizing care, regardless of ability to pay.
After the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe. v. Wade in 2022, Joe Biden issued an executive order to all federal agencies to promote abortion. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services illegally expanded EMTALA to include abortion as stabilizing care in ERs.
There are very few reasons to kill a baby in the womb to stabilize a patient, and removing an ectopic pregnancy is not considered an abortion in Idaho.
The Biden administration sued Idaho, claiming that EMTALA trumped the state’s ban on abortion. A lower court ruled against the state.
“Three days after the executive order, the administration discovered a new
national abortion mandate in EMTALA, where it had evidently lain dormant for 36 years,” Idaho stated in the brief (PDF) before the Ninth Circuit.
From Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), which assisted Idaho’s attorney general on the case (emphasis added):
In August 2022, the administration sued Idaho, claiming that it could use the federal Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act and pay private hospitals to violate Idaho’s protections for life. But as the newly filed brief explains, the federal government cannot pay private parties to circumvent state law. And no conflict exists between EMTALA and Idaho’s law, as both seek to save lives, and neither requires abortions to be performed. In June, the U.S. Supreme Court sent the case back to the 9th Circuit for further consideration. That court will hear the case in December.
“Both Idaho’s law and EMTALA seek to protect the lives of women and their unborn children, and the consistency between those laws makes us confident about the future of this case,” said ADF Senior Counsel and Vice President of Appellate Advocacy John Bursch.
Photo credit: American Life League (Creative Commons) – Some rights reserved
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