In 1986, Congress enacted the Emergency Medical Treatment & Labor Act (“EMTALA”) to ensure public access to emergency healthcare services regardless of an individual’s ability to pay for such access. Primarily, the EMTLA was adopted to curb the practice of “patient dropping” (that is, relocate an emergency department patient to a new facility, to the extent the individual did not have the means to pay for necessary emergency healthcare services). The EMTALA extended to emergency abortions when necessary to stabilize a patient, along with other protected emergency care services.
Summary
On June 27, 2024, the Supreme Court dismissed two cases, Moyle v. United States and Idaho v. United States, that challenged whether an Idaho law could coexist with the EMTALA, which requires hospitals to provide stabilizing care for patients in emergency medical conditions, including medically necessary emergency abortions. The cases challenged state abortion bans against EMTALA, and the government argued that EMTALA preempted Idaho law.
These two cases come shortly after the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization (2022) decision overturned the constitutional right to abortion set out in Roe v. Wade. In response to the overturning of Roe, lawmakers in Idaho enacted a restrictive abortion ban. After a federal district court ruled to protect emergency abortion care in Idaho under EMTALA, thereby, superseding Idaho’s recent abortion ban, the State asked the Supreme Court to weigh in on whether EMTALA’s federal mandate overrides state laws restricting abortion access in certain circumstances.
The Supreme Court’s election to dismiss the Idaho cases leaves open the question of whether EMTALA preempts state law, effectively leaving the lower courts in the position of making the final say on the status of the conflict. While Idaho can still allow medically necessary emergency abortions under EMTALA, the fate of the law in other states is uncertain. Despite the Supreme Court having clear precedent to uphold the preemptive nature of the EMTALA, the Supreme Court failed to do so in this instance.
Broadly, the Idaho cases illustrate the power of states to single out certain conditions of their choosing and then develop legislation that makes medically appropriate emergency care for those procedures illegal. As a result, the cases carry enormous implications for the power of states to ban other types of medically appropriate, but disfavored, emergency care through the enactment of laws that target certain populations or particular medical conditions. What is clear is that the fallout from the EMTALA conflict is not necessarily going to end at access to emergency abortion.
Additional Resources
- https://www.cms.gov/medicare/regulations-guidance/legislation/emergency-medical-treatment-labor-act
- https://www.scotusblog.com/case-files/cases/idaho-v-united-states/
- https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/23pdf/23-726_6jgm.pdf
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