President Trump’s decision to dismiss a lawsuit seeking to force emergency room doctors in Idaho to perform abortion was a prudent one and it served to further underscore his belief that regulation of abortion is the job of individual states.
The suit asked whether the federal Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act (EMTALA) should supersede Idaho law protecting most babies from abortion by allowing the procedure if a mother’s life is in jeopardy.
But Idaho law already allows abortion to save the life of the mother, making the EMTALA challenge just another example of the abortion extremists in the Biden administration looking for every nook and cranny where they might be able to shoehorn in a right to abortion.
Biden’s administration was marked by several blatant attempts to work around abortion law. Here are just a few:
- In 2024, the Equal Employment and Opportunity Commission published a final rule that expanded the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act to include protections for women who might need special accommodations after having an abortion. Exactly what those accommodations might be was never spelled out. A challenge to the rule brought by 17 state attorneys general is ongoing.
- In 2023, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) announced it would spend $1.5 million in taxpayer funding to establish an abortion hotline. The Biden administration also created a website promoting abortion, but the Trump administration has removed it.
- In 2022, the Defense Department announced it would reimburse members of the armed services if they had to travel to have an abortion. That policy has been dropped since Trump took office.
These actions were not done in the spirit of giving women freedom of choice. They were examples of Biden and the Democrats acting like zealous apostles as they pushed abortion on Americans.
The Dobbs decision from the U.S. Supreme Court in 2022, overturning Roe v. Wade, was a clear indication that the judicial branch of our government should give deference to the judgments of lawmakers. The Justice Department’s dismissal of the EMTALA case now shows the executive branch also is willing to defer to the will of the people and their elected representatives in all 50 states.
EMTALA was passed in 1986 as a way to compel U.S. hospitals that receive Medicare funding to provide treatment to anyone who shows up in an emergency room, whether they are able to pay for it or not. In August 2022, two months after Dobbs, Biden’s HHS advised hospitals that EMTALA would supersede state laws if a pregnant “person” needed an abortion as part of emergency care, and sued Idaho to ensure compliance.
A federal judge issued a preliminary injunction, putting the Idaho law on hold, and the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals later upheld the injunction. The Supreme Court last year declined to get involved in the case, sending it back to the Ninth Circuit, which heard oral arguments in December. The court’s decision is now moot because Trump has dropped the suit.
But the issue is not yet settled. St. Luke’s Health System, the largest healthcare provider in Idaho, is continuing its related challenge to the Defense of Life Act, and last week asked a federal judge to continue to block the law while the case is still in court.
But such a stance is judicially obsolete. We’re in a new era. The Supreme Court has made it clear that the judicial branch has no reason to stop the American people from protecting the unborn.
Moreover, the Idaho case reminds us that pro-life laws do not deprive women of stabilizing care and do not conflict with EMTALA. They only conflict with radical Democrat abortion extremism.
Frank Pavone is an anti-abortion leader and national director of Priests for Life. Read Frank Pavone Reports — More Here.
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