Earlier this month, the Trump administration dropped the lawsuit initially brought by the Biden administration against Idaho, which claimed that the state’s abortion ban violates the Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act (EMTALA) – the federal law that requires hospitals to provide stabilizing treatment to patients who present to their emergency rooms.

In Idaho, a new court order will temporarily shield physicians at St. Luke’s Health System from criminal prosecution for providing abortion care in an emergency. The bad news: The order only applies if you’re at the right hospital. The rest of the state is under no obligation to provide emergency abortion care.

The absence of a federally recognized health exception to abortion bans has direct implications both for pregnant people and for physicians’ autonomy to manage pregnancy-related media emergencies based on broadly iterations of the standards of care. Since the Dobbs decision, maternal mortality rate has increased, especially for women of color – and the health care of every pregnant person is at risk so long as EMTALA is excluded at the federal level:

Our statement by Nourbese Flint, abortion rights expert and President of All* Above All:

“The harms fall hardest on people of color and people working to make ends meet, who are more likely to visit the emergency room due to lack of access to routine health care,” Flint says. “Anti-abortion politicians want to deny pregnant people emergency medical care because they’d rather prioritize their political agendas over people’s very lives, health, and future fertility. It is important for us who believe in freedom, autonomy over our bodies, and a functioning democracy to understand that the majority MAGA justices are still in pursuit of power, even if it is delayed. Our communities deserve better.” 

All* Above All has endorsed a resolution re-introduced on Friday by Reps. Mike Sherrill (NJ-11) and Emilia Sykes (OH-13) to reaffirm access to emergency abortion care for all Americans in every state.All