The Supreme Court inadvertently posted a copy of a ruling on its website Wednesday in the Biden administration’s challenge to Idaho’s abortion ban, a court spokesperson confirmed.
The decision that briefly appeared on the website stated the case would be dismissed as “improvidently granted,” with the majority ruling to reinstate a lower court order allowing hospitals to perform abortions in emergency situations, Bloomberg reported. The justices allowed Idaho’s abortion ban to remain in effect until a decision was issued when they took the case in January.
“The opinion in Moyle v. United States, No. 23-726, and Idaho v. United States, No. 23-727, has not been released,” Patricia McCabe, the Supreme Court’s public information officer, told the Daily Caller News Foundation. “The Court’s Publications Unit inadvertently and briefly uploaded a document to the Court’s website.”
“The Court’s opinion in these cases will be issued in due course,” McCabe continued.
The ruling reviewed by Bloomberg indicated the justices split 6-3. In a concurrence, Justice Elena Kagan reportedly wrote the decision “will prevent Idaho from enforcing its abortion ban when the termination of a pregnancy is needed to prevent serious harms to a woman’s health.”
Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito and Neil Gorsuch dissented, according to Bloomberg.
“The Government’s preemption theory is plainly unsound,” Alito wrote in the briefly published dissent. “Far from requiring hospitals to perform abortions, the text unambiguously demands that Medicare-funded hospitals protect the health of both a pregnant woman and her ‘unborn child.’”
The Court’s “about-face” between the time it decided in January to hear the case before the Ninth Circuit considered the appeal and dismissed it as improvidently granted is “baffling,” the dissent continues.
“Apparently, the Court has simply lost the will to decide the easy but emotional and highly politicized question that the case presents,” Alito wrote.
The DOJ sued Idaho shortly after the Supreme Court released its landmark ruling reversing Roe v. Wade in 2022, arguing that the state’s Defense of Life Act prevents emergency room doctors from performing abortions required under the federal Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act’s (EMTALA). In certain circumstances, emergency “stabilizing care” mandated by EMTALA includes abortions, bringing federal law into conflict with Idaho’s ban, the DOJ claimed.
This is a breaking news story and will be updated.
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