(Oregon Right to Life) — The U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday published, then quickly removed, a document suggesting that the Court is planning to dismiss the Moyle v. United States case concerning whether Idaho’s pro-life law runs afoul of a federal statute dealing with emergency medical care.
“The Court’s Publications Unit inadvertently and briefly uploaded a document to the Court’s website,” Supreme Court spokeswoman Patricia McCabe said in a statement. “The Court’s opinion in Moyle v. United States and Idaho v. United States will be issued in due course.”
If the document is the actual decision that the U.S. Supreme Court plans to issue, the Court will rule 6–3 to dismiss the case as “improvidently granted,” sending it back to the lower courts. By appearances, the decision will also permit an injunction against Idaho’s pro-life law to once again take effect, at least until the final resolution of the litigation.
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According to the accidentally uploaded document, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson wrote, “Today’s decision is not a victory for pregnant patients in Idaho. It is [a] delay. While this court dawdles and the country waits, pregnant people experiencing emergency medical conditions remain in a precarious position, as their doctors are kept in the dark about what the law requires.”
Justice Samuel Alito, who reportedly dissented from the decision along with Justices Samuel Alito and Neil Gorsuch, argued the court “has simply lost the will to decide the easy but emotional and highly politicized question that the case presents.”
“While we were hopeful for a ruling on the merits, the Court made clear that this case needs further lower court resolution,” National Right to Life said in a statement.
In Moyle, the Biden administration argued that the 1986 federal Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act (EMTALA) superseded Idaho’s robustpro-life law in emergency situations, where, they argued, abortion can be necessary as “stabilizing care.”
Idaho has argued that the EMTALA doesn’t conflict with its pro-life law and that the state already distinguishes between necessary (and fully legal) medical interventions and unlawful abortions deliberately intended to end innocent unborn lives.
Oregon Right to Life will report on this matter further once the official decision is released.
