The Supreme Court on Monday rejected the Biden administration’s attempt to carve out emergency exceptions to Texas’ strict abortion law.
The Department of Health and Human Services had argued that a federal law governing emergency care trumped state law, requiring hospitals to perform abortions in cases where a mother’s life or serious health consequences were at stake.
Texas argued that the feds had cut too many corners in rushing to issue the policy. A lower appeals court sided with Texas and the Supreme Court, in a brief order Monday, allowed that decision to stand.
No justice commented on the decision.
Monday kicked off the Supreme Court’s new term, with the justices hearing oral arguments in cases involving delays in a state paying unemployment insurance benefits and whether federal or state courts should have jurisdiction over a civil procedure dispute.
On Tuesday, the justices will hear a highly anticipated case challenging the Biden administration’s attempt to regulate privately manufactured firearms made from kits or partially finished gun receivers.
The justices announced Monday that dispositions in dozens of matters piled up over the summer break, including kicking several other gun-rights cases back to lower courts and directing judges to re-decide them based on this summer’s ruling that found the Second Amendment does allow the government to deny gun rights to people deemed a danger.
In another disposition, the justices returned a case involving the federal sex offender registry law to a lower court. The justices told the lower court to give the case a new look in light of this summer’s major case limiting the deference judges are supposed to show to the federal bureaucracy.
In Texas, the abortion case grew out of the Biden administration’s attempt to revive some national abortion rights standards after the Supreme Court’s 2022 decision overturning Roe v. Wade.
After that ruling two years ago, HHS issued a directive telling hospitals that take federal money that the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act, which sets health care standards for hospitals, requires them to perform abortions in emergencies even where state law would forbid it.
Texas sued over the directive, saying it went beyond what EMTALA required. The state also said the feds skipped over a required notice-and-comment period before issuing the guidance.
A trial court, and later the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, sided with Texas.
The result was that Texas is not covered by the HHS directive.
SBA Pro-Life America hailed the ruling as a “big win for mothers and babies nationwide” and said it undercut “harmful misinformation” about state abortion restrictions.
“The truth is clear: No state with strong pro-life laws prevents doctors from providing emergency care for expectant moms,” said Katie Glenn Daniel, the group’s state policy director.
The Texas case is the second involving HHS’ EMTALA guidance to reach the justices.
In their previous term, they took a case from Idaho, which was clashing with the Biden administration over its abortion restrictions. But after hearing oral arguments, the justices bowed out of the case, saying they had been too hasty and wanted to see it develop more in the lower courts.
Correction: A previous version of this article incorrectly reported the state whose abortion case went to the Supreme Court in its previous term. The state is Idaho.
• Stephen Dinan can be reached at sdinan@washingtontimes.com.
• Alex Swoyer can be reached at aswoyer@washingtontimes.com.
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