Dear Friends,
I’m pleased to share the Trump Department of Justice dismissed the previous administration’s attack on Idaho’s Defense of Life Act. I have been fighting against the Biden Administration’s twisted interpretation of federal statutes to keep individual states from enacting pro-life laws for the last two years, and this dismissal is a welcome relief. It shows we finally have an administration that respects the principles of Federalism and the sovereignty of states to enact their own laws and set their own standards.
As a quick background, the Biden Administration sued Idaho’s Defense of Life Act in 2023, following the overturn of Roe v. Wade in the Dobbs decision. Idaho’s law says that abortions were not permitted unless in cases of rape, incest, or where the life of the mother was in jeopardy. The Idaho Supreme Court went on to clarify our law, saying that the decision to perform an abortion in an emergency situation was left to a doctor’s subjective, good-faith medical judgement, and that a danger to the mother’s life did not need to be either imminent nor did the doctor need to be certain.
Instead of respecting the SCOTUS decision to put the issue of abortion back under state control, the Biden Administration manipulated a federal statute on the books, known as EMTALA – the Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act. Biden’s DOJ insisted that providing abortions was a mandated function of any emergency room that accepts federal Medicaid payments. EMTALA was designed to prevent hospitals from turning away patients who could not pay. In fact, EMTALA language does not mention abortion. Instead, the federal law refers to providing stabilizing treatment for both a mother and her unborn child – five times, actually. Undeterred by reality, the Biden Administration pressed forward with a legal challenge to Idaho’s law, leading to the first Supreme Court showdown on abortion laws since the Dobbs decision.
Last April, we fought the federal government to a standstill at the Supreme Court in Idaho v. United States, leaving Idaho’s law virtually intact. We maintained there is absolutely no conflict between Idaho’s law and EMTALA, where the goal of both is to save lives. SCOTUS remanded the case back to the 9th Circuit for more arguments since it was demonstrated there was no actual emergency circumstances claimed by the federal government that would require an abortion to stabilize a patient that would be somehow disallowed by Idaho’s very clear and straightforward law.
But then November Fifth happened. President Trump won a decisive victory across the country and pro-abortion activists and their attorneys began to worry that a new Department of Justice might not support the same creative interpretations of federal law that the Biden Administration had hung their hat on. It turns out they were right. This Wednesday, under the new leadership of Attorney General Pam Bondi, the DOJ filed for a dismissal of the challenge of Idaho’s Defense of Life Act. Idaho responded in kind by filing to dismiss our appeal that is sitting at the 9th Circuit. I wish I could say that’s where the story ends, but in the legal profession, that is rarely the circumstance.
Those same pro-abortion activists, lawyers and providers saw the writing on the wall. Six days before President Trump’s inauguration they filed a similar challenge to Idaho’s law, led by St. Luke’s Health System. St. Luke’s claimed they would suffer irreparable harm by having to instruct their doctors that Idaho’s law directs them to treat patients in emergencies without abortions unless necessary to save a woman’s life, according to a doctor’s subjective, good-faith medical judgement.
This new suit from St. Luke’s is ongoing and is being heard by the very same Clinton-appointed federal judge that had blocked Idaho’s Defense of Life Act with the first EMTALA challenge from the Biden Administration. I have every reasonable expectation that we will need to continue this fight via appeal, all the way back to the Supreme Court so we can settle this issue of EMTALA once and for all.
As your Attorney General, I will always fight to protect the sovereignty of Idaho’s laws, the voice of the people, and for the protection of the unborn. Through our laws, Idaho has chosen Life and I am proud to defend it, wherever that fight takes us.
Best regards,
Not yet subscribed to the Labrador Letter? Click HERE to get our weekly newsletter and updates. Miss an issue? Labrador Letters are archived on the Attorney General website.