Supreme Court Poised to Permit Abortion in Idaho Medical Emergencies

The U.S. Supreme Court is likely to allow abortions in Idaho during medical emergencies, according to Bloomberg. A ruling that was accidentally posted suggests Idaho's abortion ban will yield to the 1986 EMTALA law, ensuring emergency care. This development follows a prior abortion ruling leak in 2022.

The U.S. Supreme Court appears poised to allow abortions to be carried out in Idaho in cases of medical emergencies, Bloomberg reported on Wednesday, citing a copy of a ruling it said was briefly posted on the court's website.

A court spokesperson said in a statement that a document was "inadvertently and briefly uploaded" to the court's website, and that the opinion in the case "will be issued in due course." According to the Bloomberg report, the decision would effectively reinstate a lower court's ruling that had found that Idaho's near-total abortion ban must yield to a 1986 U.S. law known as the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act (EMTALA) when the two statutes conflict. EMTALA ensures that patients can receive emergency care at hospitals that receive funding under the federal Medicare program.

The court is nearing the end of its current term and is expected to release its final decisions in the coming days. The development on Wednesday marked the second time in two years that a major Supreme Court ruling on abortion has been disclosed before being formally issued by the justices. In May 2022, a draft of a ruling authored by Justice Samuel Alito of the decision that overturned the landmark 1973 Roe v. Wade precedent that had legalized abortion nationwide was leaked a month before being formally issued.

(This story has not been edited by Devdiscourse staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)