A federal appeals court has ruled that Idaho can fully enforce its abortion ban to save babies from abortions.
As LifeNews reported previously, the Idaho Supreme Court allowed the state’s heartbeat law to be enforced that protects the lives of unborn babies when they have a detectable heartbeat at 6 weeks. In a 3 to 2 decision the court upheld the civil enforcement mechanism contained in the Idaho Heartbeat Law. They further stated that Planned Parenthood is unlikely to succeed in its efforts to challenge the civil enforcement mechanism or the criminal penalties of the Heartbeat Law.
The state’s highest court also rejected Planned Parenthood’s bid to block the state’s trigger law from going into effect on August 25th, which would protect babies starting at conception.
However, a federal judge blocked a portion of the abortion ban from going into effect — saying that abortions must be allowed in cases where the life of the mother is in danger or in medical emergencies (which the law already allows). The Biden administration is hoping to misuse a federal law that requires protection for unborn babies to assert that aboritons have to be done in more circumstances than the law already allows. A Democrat-appointed judge sided with the administration.
However, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals issued an order on Thursday lifting the lower court ruling and now idaho can fully enforce the abortion ban.
Citing the Supreme Court decision Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization that returned the issue of abortion to the individual states, Judge Lawrence VanDyke said Idaho is one of many states using “that prerogative to enact abortion restrictions.”
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In the decision released Thursday, VanDyke disagreed. He wrote that the injunction “directly harms [Idaho’s] sovereignty.”
“Because there is no preemption, the Idaho Legislature is entitled to a stay of the district court’s order improperly enjoining its duly enacted statute,” he wrote.
“Ultimately, given our conclusion that EMTALA does not preempt Idaho’s law, the federal government has no discernible interest in regulating the internal medical affairs of the State, and the public interest is best served by preserving the force and effect of a duly enacted Idaho law during the pendency of this appeal,” VanDyke concluded. “Therefore, the balance of the equities and the public interest support a stay in this case.”
The Legislature argues that EMTALA expresses concern in medical emergencies for a fetus, so they say that the Biden Administration deliberately ignored this portion of the act to serve their own interests as an “erasure scheme.”
The brief calls the Department of Justice’s actions a “political maneuver” to “repurpose EMTALA” as a Roe/Casey restoration act.
The brief cites a Texas ruling on the state’s abortion ban — a judge ruled that Texas’ ban does not conflict with EMTALA.
“Because EMTALA simply ‘does not resolve how stabilizing treatments must be provided when a doctor’s duties to a pregnant woman and her unborn child possibly conflict,’ id. at 49, “EMTALA leaves [that resolution] to the states,” the brief said.
“The people of Idaho enjoy constitutional authority to govern themselves with respect to abortion, and no federal statute, however overread by an Administration committed to countering Dobbs, can lawfully diminish that authority,” it said.
As LifeNews reported, the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, with a 6-3 majority ruling in the Dobbs case that “The Constitution does not confer a right to abortion” — allowing states to ban abortions and protect unborn babies. The high court also ruled 6-3 uphold the Mississippi 15-week abortion ban so states can further limit abortions and to get rid of the false viability standard.
Chief Justice John Roberts technically voted for the judgment but, in his concurring opinion, disagreed with the reasoning and said he wanted to keep abortions legal but with a new standard.
Polls show Americans are pro-life on abortion and a new national poll shows 75% of Americans essentially agree with the Supreme Court overturning Roe.
Despite false reports that abortion bans would prevent doctors from treating pregnant women for miscarriages or ectopic pregnancies, pro-life doctors confirm that is not the case. Some 35 states have laws making it clear that miscarriage is not abortion and every state with an abortion ban allows treatment for both.
