A protest happening after Planned Parenthood affiliate filed a lawsuit within the Idaho Supreme Court to stop the state to trigger a law that effectively bans abortion. A federal judge on Wednesday temporarily blocked a part of Idaho’s strict abortion law that is scheduled to take effect Thursday, handing the Biden administration a narrow courtroom win in its first lawsuit to guard reproductive rights for the reason that Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade.
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A federal judge on Wednesday temporarily blocked a part of Idaho’s strict abortion law that is scheduled to take effect Thursday, handing the Biden administration a narrow courtroom win in its first lawsuit to guard reproductive rights for the reason that Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade.
The ruling from Judge B. Lynn Winmill prevents Idaho from enforcing the brand new law when it conflicts with federal guidance on emergency abortion care in hospitals.
“The State of Idaho is not going to suffer any real harm if the Court issues the modest preliminary injunction the US is requesting,” Winmill wrote.
U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland announced the lawsuit against Idaho earlier this month, and argued that the state’s law conflicted with a federal statute often known as the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act, or EMTALA, which was enacted in 1986 to make sure patients receive adequate emergency medical care.
That law requires doctors to offer the emergency medical treatment mandatory to stabilize anyone who comes into an emergency room. “This includes abortion, when that’s the mandatory treatment,” Garland said on the time.
Winmill heard arguments on the Justice Department’s request for a preliminary injunction Monday and said he would issue a written order no later than Wednesday. The state law remains to be scheduled to take effect Thursday, minus the availability Winmill said the state cannot implement for now.
While the state argued that its law didn’t conflict with EMTALA, Winmill found its argument was not persuasive, “since it has did not properly account for the staggeringly broad scope of its law,” which he said “criminalizes all abortions.”
“It’s not possible to comply with each statutes,” Winmill wrote. “[W]here federal law requires the availability of care and state law criminalizes that very care, it’s not possible to comply with each laws. Full stop.”
