The Department of Justice has sued the state over the law, which bans abortion after six weeks of pregnancy, claiming that the federal Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act preempts the state law. The federal law mandates physicians to perform medically stabilizing abortions in an emergency.
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre was questioned regarding the lawsuit throughout the afternoon press briefing and spoke strongly against the Idaho law.
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"It imposes a near-total ban on abortion and criminalizes doctors who provide abortions," she announced. "Idaho’s law and its treatment of women is devastating, it’s extreme, and it threatens lives, period. Federal law makes clear that doctors must provide women emergency medical care, including abortions services, to stabilize women facing health- and life-threatening conditions."
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The legal filing marks the first time President Joe Biden's Justice Department has started a challenge against a state for abortion restrictions since the landmark June 24 Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization decision overturned a half-century of abortion access precedent, which the president denounced as a "realization of an extreme ideology and a tragic error by the Supreme Court."
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The press secretary claimed that under the law, women seeking emergency care for argued conditions like ectopic pregnancies or hemorrhages can be denied medically necessary healthcare by doctors. Nevertheless, allegations regarding how state laws affect ectopic pregnancies are disputed.
The Idaho Supreme Court is supposed to hear arguments Wednesday on challenges over its near-total abortion ban, according to the Idaho Press.
"President Biden has said many times that the only way to fully secure a woman’s right to choose is for Congress to take action to restore protections that Roe has given women for almost 50 years before the extreme decision was made at the Supreme Court just over a month ago," she announced. "Until then, the president is doing everything in his power to defend reproductive rights and protect the access to safe ad legal abortion, and then, we’re gonna continue to do that."
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Attorney General Merrick Garland explained there are circumstances in which abortion is "necessary" if a patient is experiencing an unstable condition throughout pregnancy.
"This may be the case, for example, when a woman is undergoing a miscarriage that threatens septic infection or hemorrhage or is suffering from severe preeclampsia," Garland stated, referring to a disorder that can cause fatal consequences to women undergoing unstable pregnancies.
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