The attorney for the Biden administration scrambled on Tuesday to reveal to the U.S. Supreme Court how a 1986 federal law that encourages the preservation of the mother’s and her “unborn child “‘s health does mandate that Idaho facilities carry out abortions in place of state-specific exceptions.
Idaho’s Defense of Life Act laws, which went into effect in August 2022, prohibits abortion except in cases of rape, incest, or if a doctor deems it necessary to save the family’s lifestyle. The federal government, convinced about advancing President Joe Biden’s pregnancy plan, sued Idaho over its , popular , living rules.
The Department of Justice based its lawsuit on a manufactured federal abortion mandate that was reinterpreted by the Reagan-era Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act ( EMTALA ) by the Biden administration. Following the Supreme Court’s Dobbs v. Jackson decision, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services ( CMS ) initiated the expansion.
EMTALA, designed to stop institutions from turning away people based on their inability to pay for their expenses, directly does” not prevent any State or local laws condition, except to the extent that the requirement , directly , conflicts with”. The Biden administration, however, claimed pregnancy may be classified as a” stabilizing” process “irrespective of any state regulations or demands that apply to certain processes”.
The Supreme Court granted a stay in January after a string of contradictory court rulings and appeals, allowing the life-saving laws to be enforced throughout the legal process. Justice Samuel Alito questioned Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar during the questioning part of Tuesday’s Moyle v. United States  oral arguments about how the federal authorities reconciled CMS’s growth of the law with EMTALA’s obvious-cut mention of infants in the uterus.
” One potentially significant phrase in EMTALA has hardly ever been mentioned. Maybe it has n’t even been mentioned at all. And that is an imposed reference to the woman’s ‘ unborn child.’ Is n’t that an odd phrase to use in a statute that requires the performing of abortions? Alito questioned.
Alito pressed Prelogar again to explain why a law that the federal government claims covers abortion would mention the unborn child. Prelogar dodged the question.
The hospital has tried to eliminate any immediate threat to the child, it seems to be the plainest definition. However, having an abortion is against the law and duty, Alito remarked. You go so far as to claim that the statute has proven to be in your favor. In light of the provisions I just read to you, I’m not sure how you can say that.
Prelogar argued that Alito’s concern should n’t matter because “in many cases you’re considering, there is no possible way to stabilize the unborn child because the fetus is sufficiently advanced before viability.”
” The pregnancy is inevitably going to be lost, but Idaho would deny women in that circumstance even though it’s senseless”, Prelogar continued.
Alito, unsatisfied with Prelogar’s scrambling, doubled down on his suggestion that Idaho’s law seems to preempt EMTALA.
” The statute imposes on the hospital a duty to the woman, certainly, and also a duty to the child. It does n’t specify how it is to resolve disputes between those interests and instead leaves that decision up to state law,” Alito said.
Alito also criticized Prelogar for trying to “get out of what I’ve just outlined” by claiming that the definition of “individual” in EMTALA does not include an unborn child. He refrained from doing so by pointing out that “dictionary definitions only apply if they are not incompatible with the statutory text.” The Idaho law, Alito continued, “indisputably protects the interests of the unborn child”.
In her reply, Prelogar accused Alito and others of suggesting that” the woman herself is n’t an individual, that she does n’t deserve stabilization”. That claim was initially rejected by Atito.
The majority of your argument today has been focused on the idea that Idaho has a bad law, which may be the case, but what you’re asking us to do is interpret a law that was signed by President Reagan and signed by the Reagan administration to imply that there is a requirement under certain circumstances to perform an abortion, even if doing so would violate state law, Alito said.
Prelogar did n’t take heat from just Alito over the federal government’s argument in this particular case. Justice Amy Coney Barrett pressed her after she claimed that EMTALA mandates that states allow abortions if they receive taxpayer funding, despite the Hyde Amendment’s prohibition against taxpayer-funded abortion.
” This is hugely concerning if the federal government can pay private actors to violate state laws and not just any state law state criminal laws”, Josh Turner, a lawyer for Attorney General , Raúl Labrador’s office arguing on behalf of Idaho, said during his concluding argument. That has a lot of implications. The federal government is thus unaffected by enumerated powers.
After Prelogar acknowledged that” there are six other states with severe abortion restrictions without a health exception,” Turner also warned that any states with pro-life laws are at risk of being prosecuted by the Biden administration.
Because all of the states with abortion laws narrowly define the emergency exception and the health, EMTALA does not, as General Prelogar noted,” this is n’t going to end with the six states.” Therefore, this issue will arise in state after state after state, and it is not limited to physical health,” Turner said in his closing arguments.
Jordan Boyd is a co-producer of The Federalist Radio Hour and a staff writer at The Federalist. Her work has also been featured in The Daily Wire, Fox News, and RealClearPolitics. Jordanian completed her political science major at Baylor University and minored in journalism. Follow her on Twitter @jordanboydtx.
