WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court on Thursday cleared the best way for Idaho hospitals to perform emergency abortions initially in a procedural ruling that left key questions unanswered and could lead on to the matter soon ending up again before the court with a conservative majority.
The ruling got here a day after an opinion was unintentionally posted briefly on the court's website and quickly deleted, but Bloomberg News had previously learned of it.
The final ruling appears to be largely consistent with the previously published draft, overturning the court's earlier order that had allowed a ban on abortion in Idaho even in medical emergencies.
But it doesn't resolve the core of the case, meaning the identical justices who voted to strike down the constitutional right to abortion may soon reconsider when doctors can perform abortions in medical emergencies.
The early release marked the second time in two years that a ruling on an abortion case was issued early, albeit under barely different circumstances. The court's shocking ruling ending the constitutional right to abortion was leaked to Politico.
The ruling got here as a part of a lawsuit filed by the Biden administration against Idaho, arguing that federal law requires doctors to be allowed to perform emergency abortions when there are serious health risks to a pregnant woman.
Idaho had resisted, arguing that its law provided an exception to save lots of the lifetime of a pregnant patient, but federal law didn’t provide for expanded exceptions.
Doctors in Idaho said the law doesn’t clearly define after they can perform emergency abortions, and for the reason that Supreme Court enacted the ban in January, they’ve been forced to fly pregnant women to other states for emergency care.
The ruling means the Idaho case can be heard in lower courts and should find yourself before the Supreme Court again. It doesn’t answer key questions on whether doctors can perform emergency abortions elsewhere – a pressing issue since most Republican-controlled states have taken motion to limit the procedure within the two years for the reason that Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade.
In an analogous case, the state of Texas also argued that federal health care reform law didn’t apply to a state abortion ban, and the fifth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, based in New Orleans, sided with the state.
The ruling in Idaho doesn’t appear to affect that finding. The Biden administration has appealed the case in Texas, so the problem should be heard by the Supreme Court. It is unlikely that the justices will even consider taking the Texas case before the autumn.
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