In the weeks after the Supreme Court dismantled a constitutional right to abortion in 2022 and returned the issue of access to the states, a new series of court battles began.
After the Biden administration announced it would protect access to abortion under emergency situations through a decades-old federal law, conservative states pushed back, leading to dueling lawsuits in Texas and Idaho.
Those cases created a divide among federal courts, known as a circuit split.
It intensified pressure on the Supreme Court to settle whether the law, the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act, pre-empts state abortion bans, shielding doctors who perform emergency abortions in efforts to stabilize the health of a pregnant woman.
After Roe fell, the Department of Health and Human Services issued guidance to hospitals, including those in states with abortion bans, that federal law mandated that pregnant women be allowed to receive abortions in emergency rooms so long as doctors believed the procedures were required for “stabilizing treatment.”
Persons:
Roe, ”
Organizations:
Biden, Labor Act, Department of Health, Human Services
Locations:
Texas, Idaho