On the same day that Kansas voted against allowing the Legislature to ban abortion, the Justice Department announced that it was bringing suit against Idaho, which has the near absolute bar that Kansas rejected.
In explaining the Justice Department suit, Attorney General Merrick Garland emphasized that federal law, applicable to every hospital in the country because they all take federal funds, prohibits denial of emergency medical care to patients in life-threatening situations. That includes women facing medical emergencies like septic and ectopic pregnancies, which could literally kill them if they don’t have a life-saving abortion. Under the Supremacy Clause of the Constitution, when state and federal law conflict, federal law governs. Thus, Garland argued, the Idaho law cannot withstand scrutiny.
The ban on turning away patients facing life-threatening emergencies was originally intended to prohibit hospitals from turning away sick patients who did not have insurance. But there is no reason for it not to apply as well to patients who are turned away for political and not medical reasons. Under the Idaho law, all a prosecutor needs to do is show that an abortion has been performed, and then the burden is on the physician to prove that it was done to save the life of the mother.
A lawsuit already pending in Idaho, brought by a family physician and Planned Parenthood, alleges that the defense for medical emergencies is vague and difficult to interpret, since some conditions may kill a pregnant woman but don’t always. Doctors should not have to fear for their licenses or their livelihood when they take steps to save lives. And pregnant women should not have to fear the consequences, or face hostile interrogation, when they go to the hospital.
