(Oregon Right to Life) — National Right to Life Committee (NRLC) on Friday filed a brief to support Idaho’s pro-life law against a challenge by the pro-abortion Biden administration.
“NRLC’s general interest in this case is rooted in its unwavering dedication to preserving and promoting a culture of life across the United States,” the national pro-life organization wrote in its brief. “This commitment necessarily involves safeguarding the constitutional balance between federal and state authority in matters of public health and medical regulation.”
Idaho enacted the law in question, the Defense of Life Act, following the U.S. Supreme Court’s Dobbs v. Jackson decision overturning Roe v. Wade in 2022. The Defense of Life Act creates legal protections for Idaho’s unborn with narrow exceptions.
The Biden administration’s Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) immediately challenged the pro-life law, arguing that it would conflict with the 1986 federal Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act (EMTALA) in emergency situations. The EMTALA requires hospitals to stabilize patients with serious or life-threatening medical conditions and pertains to all hospitals that accept Medicare. The Biden administration has contended that abortion is sometimes “stabilizing care.”
Meanwhile, Idaho has argued that the Biden administration’s interpretation of the EMTALA, which itself refers to a fetus as an “unborn child” on four separate occasions, went too far. The state also pointed out that its legislation already distinguishes between necessary (and fully legal) medical interventions for serious conditions like ectopic and molar pregnancies, as opposed to unlawful abortions deliberately intended to end innocent unborn lives.
The case reached the U.S. Supreme Court this year, but in June, justices decided 6–3 to remand it to the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals.
READ: US Supreme Court Sends Case Concerning Idaho’s Pro-Life Law Back to the Lower Courts
In its amicus brief supporting Idaho in its ongoing litigation, NRLC said its “specific interest” in the matter “is in challenging” the HHS’s “expansive interpretation of the… [EMTALA]… which threatens to mandate the performance of abortions in violation of state laws protecting unborn life.”
“NRLC is gravely concerned that this federal overreach, if left unchecked, could have far-reaching consequences beyond abortion regulation, potentially eroding state authority to enact and enforce pro-life legislation across a wide spectrum of issues,” the filing states.
A press release put out Tuesday by James Bopp, Jr., general counsel for NRLC and lead counsel on NRLC’s brief, further explains that the NRLC’s brief supporting Idaho “argues that EMTALA was designed to establish a baseline for emergency treatment and prevent patient dumping, not to create a national medical standard of care. The brief emphasizes that EMTALA does not require hospitals to provide medical care contrary to state law, especially in ethically complex areas like abortion.”
“This federal overreach not only undermines state sovereignty but also dismisses the will of the people in these states,” Bopp said in the statement. “It’s a troubling example of how Washington bureaucrats are willing to ignore local voters to push a one-size-fits-all abortion agenda. The citizens in pro-life states have made their choice at the ballot box, and it’s not the federal government’s place to nullify those decisions.”
The 9th Circuit Court is slated to hear arguments in the case in December.
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Idaho Attorney General Raúl Labrador has expressed optimism that the 9th Circuit will make a favorable decision. He noted in a June press release that his office had achieved “significant concessions” from the Biden administration during arguments before the U.S. Supreme Court.
“The 9th Circuit’s decision should be easy,” Labrador said at the time. “As Justice Alito explained well: the Biden Administration’s ‘preemption theory is plainly unsound.’”
The Idaho attorney general added, “I remain committed to protect unborn life and ensure women in Idaho receive necessary medical care, and I will continue my outreach to doctors and hospitals across Idaho to ensure that they understand what our law requires.”
“We look forward to ending this Administration’s relentless overreach into Idahoans’ right to protect and defend life,” he said.
NRLC joins twenty states and numerous pro-life groups, including the American Association of Pro-Life Obstetricians & Gynecologists and the Charlotte Lozier Institute, in filing a brief backing Idaho’s pro-life legislation.
Click here to read NRCL’s amicus brief.
