WASHINGTON (April 2, 2024) — The Supreme Court will sit on April 24 Idaho v. United States. This case will determine whether a narrow but powerful national guarantee of access to emergency hospital care protects pregnant women whose medical emergencies require abortion as stabilizing care to prevent death or severe and long-term harm to health.
Since 1986, the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act (EMTALA) has applied to all Medicare-participating hospitals with emergency departments. Due to Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Orgwhich ended the constitutional right to abortion but did not change EMTALA’s special protections in urgent care, the question of whether Dobbs affecting this uniquely American law emerged. Moreover, the implications of the case extend beyond pregnancy-related emergencies; if the Court rules in Idaho’s favor, states will effectively be able to roll back EMTALA’s protections for disadvantaged populations, conditions, and treatments in general.
“The Supreme Court’s decision could leave pregnant women experiencing a health crisis without essential care to stabilize their emergency,” said Lynn R. Goldman, dean of the School of Public Health at the George Washington Milken Institute and one of the friends. “During pregnancy, very serious problems can arise that require immediate treatment. Without emergency medical care, including abortion if necessary, women are at risk of serious health consequences throughout their lives.
EMTALA provides a national approach to emergency department patients that ensures they are evaluated and stabilized for life- or health-threatening conditions, including reproductive emergencies. Congress made EMTALA a condition of hospital participation in Medicare as a safeguard for patients. This protection was necessary because of a significant prior history of patient discharges, including discharge of unstable patients and neglect. For 40 years, this guarantee, whose scope and purpose is clear, has protected all patients seeking emergency care. By its express terms, EMTALA overrides state laws that conflict with its requirements.
The amicus brief for Public Health argued that if the Supreme Court allowed Idaho to proceed despite the clear scope and scope of EMTALA, states could prohibit their hospitals from responding to other emergencies, including any type of emergency involving pregnant women , in which pregnancy loss may be a consequence of emergency intervention.
“Every person deserves access to vital emergency care, and EMTALA embodies our nation’s collective commitment to this principle to protect life and health. Any limitation of these protections for emergency care would put countless people at risk and undermine the very foundation of compassion in our health care system,” said George C. Benjamin, MD, executive director, American Public Health Association.
The brief was signed by the American Public Health Association, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the American Medical Women’s Association, and the Public Health Law Network, as well as 133 doyens and scholars in public health, the health professions, and health law and policy.
The brief argues that EMTALA protects state laws that conflict with the emergency care obligations it imposes on the nearly 6,000 U.S. hospitals that participate in Medicare. Idaho state law criminalizes the provision of abortion care in all but life-threatening situations, putting the law in direct conflict with EMTALA’s universal protections.
If the Supreme Court rules in Idaho’s favor, the public health brief argues, the impact would go beyond abortion and allow states to ban treatment for adverse emergencies — a move that would threaten other types of emergency care in other situations.
The brief can be accessed online here. You can also view all the briefs in the case here.
The friends are represented by attorneys Thomas Barker (attorney of record) and Andrew London, Jack C. Smith and Alexander Somodevilla of Foley Hoag LLP.
The deans and academics who signed the application did so in their personal capacity. The opinions expressed are their own and do not represent their affiliated institutions, organizations or employers.
-GW-
