The Supreme Court’s latest abortion case debates how much value to put on women’s health
Good morning, Broadsheet readers! NPR CEO Katherine Maher responds to accusations of bias, Boeing looks for its next CEO, and the Supreme Court's latest abortion case examines how states value women's health. Have a thoughtful Thursday.
- Death's door. The latest abortion case in front of the U.S. Supreme Court debated one of the thorniest questions around abortion bans: how close to death must a person be to qualify for the life-saving exemptions to strict anti-abortion laws?
The Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act (EMTALA) requires that hospitals provide abortions to stabilize a patient when an abortion is the best treatment, even in states that have banned abortion except in cases of possible death.
Moyle v. United States is an Idaho lawsuit that asks the Supreme Court whether states are allowed to circumvent that law and prohibit abortion even if a person can’t be stabilized without one. (The state has transferred at least six patients facing medical emergencies out of state to terminate pregnancies.) Idaho is seeking to enforce its abortion ban, while the Biden administration is arguing that the EMTALA preempts the state's law.
The Supreme Court heard oral arguments yesterday, and so far the justices seem divided on this issue. The court's most conservative wing is expected to side with Idaho, while the liberal justices are likely to side with the Biden administration. Three of the six conservative justices seemed to land in the middle, still searching for legal arguments that would support Idaho's stance.
The case brings to the fore one of the most difficult, practical realities of abortion bans. Even when state bans, like Idaho's, include exceptions to save the life of the mother, providers can never be certain that conservative lawmakers and courts will agree with their judgment. When does a medical emergency qualify as life-threatening?
Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan pressed Idaho's attorney on instances in which a woman's health, but not necessarily her life, is at risk. Sotomayor raised a few examples, like a woman with pregnancy complications that are not yet life-threatening, but later lead to sepsis, or a person denied an abortion early in their pregnancy whose forced pregnancy leads to a hysterectomy. If a woman risks losing her organs, but not her life, is that enough to qualify for an abortion? (Idaho’s answer: no.)
The highest-profile abortion-related case at the Supreme Court this year has been its consideration of access to the abortion pill mifepristone. That case has brought up questions around science and medicine, roping in Big Pharma, which is concerned about the possibility of courts overruling drug developers. Moyle, meanwhile, centers on whether a state abortion ban violates federal law, but it also touches on an issue we’re forced to confront again and again: just how much value to place on women’s health.
Emma Hinchliffe
emma.hinchliffe@fortune.com
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