"So, to be clear: Today’s decision is not a victory for pregnant patients in Idaho," Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson wrote in her concurrence."It is delay."posted its second abortion rights ruling of this term on its website before swiftly deleting it. And on Thursday, by a 6-3 margin, the court purposely released its opinion and officially ruled that yes, doctors can provide pregnant people with emergency abortion care without fear of prosecution… at least temporarily.
In light of the Supreme Court’s decision, at least for now, Idaho must adhere to federal law, and allow hospitals to provide emergency abortions without threatening doctors. But, as Jezebel’s Susan Rinkunasshortly after the leak on Wednesday, this is hardly a triumph for abortion rights.
Further, the court doesn’t offer any guidance on whether pregnant people actually have a fundamental right to emergency abortions—just as, in the recent case“Will this Court just have a do-over, rehearing and rehashing the same arguments we are considering now, just at a comparatively more convenient point in time?” Jackson wrote.
Still, Alito pointed to the phrase “unborn child” in EMTALA, out-of-context, and asked, “Isn’t that an odd phrase to put in a statute that imposes a mandate to perform abortions? … Doesn’t that tell us something?” It tells us that the conservative justices were clearly eying a path toward fetal personhood. Even if this week’s ruling offers some temporary reprieve, that’s still terrifying.