The Trump administration moved to drop an Idaho emergency abortion case on Wednesday in one of its first moves on the issue since President Trump began his second term. The Justice Department filed a motion to dismiss the lawsuit, which was originally filed by the Biden administration, and allow Idaho to fully enforce its abortion ban even during emergency situations. Doctors said the ban could force them to airlift women to other states to get standard critical care without the risk of running afoul of the law. The Biden administration argued that emergency room doctors must provide terminations if necessary to stabilize pregnant women in Idaho, which has one of the country's most restrictive abortion bans, the AP reports.
The case could have nationwide implications, since the Democratic administration had given similar guidance to hospitals nationwide in the wake of the Supreme Court's 2022 decision overturning the right to abortion. It's being challenged in other Republican states. In Idaho, the state argued that its law does allow life-saving abortions and that the Biden administration wrongly sought to expand the exceptions with an incorrect interpretation of federal law. Idaho doctors, meanwhile, say it's often unclear in fast-moving emergencies whether pregnancy complications could ultimately prove fatal.
The Supreme Court stepped into the Idaho case last year. It ultimately handed down a narrow ruling that allowed hospitals to keep making determinations about emergency pregnancy terminations but left key legal questions unresolved. The case went before the 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals in December. Those judges have not yet ruled. Idaho is still blocked, for now, from enforcing the ban, Reuters reports. A federal judge issued a temporary restraining order Tuesday in a separate lawsuit filed by a Boise-based hospital system. St. Luke's Health System sought the order after it learned that the administration would be dismissing the other case.
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