Trump Department Of Justice Ends Biden-Era Lawfare Targeting Idaho’s Pro-Life Protections
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President Donald Trump’s Department of Justice is dismissing a lawsuit the Biden administration brought against Idaho in an attempt to force its abortion activism on the pro-life state, court filings reveal.
The DOJ’s decision to drop the lawfare should have opened the door for the Gem State to enforce its August 2022 Defense of Life Act. Idaho’s largest hospital system, however, filed a separate suit against the state after repeatedly claiming that it had to airlift women out of state to get emergency abortions. Despite previously failing to provide proof for that claim, St. Luke’s Health System was handed a temporary restraining order by U.S. District Judge B. Lynn Winmill, a President Bill Clinton nominee, one day before the Trump DOJ acted.
The Ronald Reagan administration enacted the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act (EMTALA) in 1986 to stop hospitals from turning away patients based on their inability to pay for their expenses. The law requires adequate treatment for an “unborn child” but also explicitly does “not preempt any State or local law requirement, except to the extent that the requirement directly conflicts with” EMTALA.
President Joe Biden’s regime, however, expanded EMTALA in the wake of the Supreme Court’s Dobbs v. Jackson ruling to include abortion as a “stabilizing” procedure in certain cases “irrespective of any state laws or mandates that apply to specific procedures.” The Democrat administration then used its redefinition to target Idaho over its lifesaving law, which prohibits abortion except in cases of rape or incest, or if a physician deems it necessary to save the mother’s life.
The U.S. Supreme Court had a chance in June of last year to shut down the Biden administration’s abortion activism. Even though U.S. Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar struggled during arguments to explain why a federal law that promotes preserving the health of a mother and her “unborn child” in medical emergencies should require Idaho hospitals to perform abortions outside of the exceptions outlined in its state law, the high bench instead ruled 6-3 to toss the case back to the leftist San Francisco-based Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.
“It has been our position from the beginning that there is no conflict between EMTALA and Idaho’s Defense of Life Act,” Idaho Attorney General Raul Labrador said in his statement confirming the DOJ dropped the suit. “The goal of each is to save lives in every circumstance, both the mother and their unborn child. We are grateful that meddlesome DOJ litigation on this issue will no longer be an obstacle to Idaho enforcing its laws. Idaho will continue defending life as intended by the legislature and our people.”
Idaho’s pro-life protections, when enforced, are estimated to save the lives of more than 1,500 unborn babies every year.
Jordan Boyd is a staff writer at The Federalist and producer of The Federalist Radio Hour. Her work has also been featured in The Daily Wire, Fox News, and RealClearPolitics. Jordan graduated from Baylor University where she majored in political science and minored in journalism. Follow her on X @jordanboydtx.
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