Was the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision not to take up a case on whether women have a right to emergency abortion care a victory for the Biden administration? Or was the court’s conservative majority just aiming to pull the issue off the table until after the November elections?
Either way, in a 6-3 ruling Thursday, the Supreme Court said it would dismiss a case out of Idaho over the state’s near-total abortion ban. The Supreme Court’s action temporarily leaves a lower-court ruling in place and clears the way for women in Idaho to get abortions when their health is at risk.
Without a Supreme Court ruling, though, “the case involving emergency abortions — and the underlying question of the state versus federal law — will continue in the lower courts,” The New York Times noted in an article you can read at the gift link here.
Arkansas and Idaho aren’t the only places where abortion is banned in just about every instance. Sixteen states have implemented similarly strict bans since the Dobbs decision of 2022, which vacated the abortion rights protections that had been in place for nearly 50 years under Roe v. Wade.
If the Supreme Court wants to revisit the issues raised in the Idaho abortion case after November, it could do so. There’s already an appeal of a similar issue pending on its docket, and that case is to be fully briefed this summer, CNN reported.
By passing up the opportunity to rule on the Idaho case, the Supreme Court missed a chance to secure women’s access to abortion care in instances of medical emergency.
“Today’s ruling is only a momentary sigh of relief in an ongoing, manufactured health care crisis. Despite the opportunity to make clear that [federal law] requires access to abortion care in an emergency, our Supreme Court chose not to,” said Emily Wales, president and chief executive officer of Planned Parenthood Great Plains.
While the justices dilly-dally, reproductive rights advocates in Arkansas are working on a constitutional amendment to enshrine abortion rights in the state.
Arkansans could soon avoid having to worry about losing a wife, mother or daughter solely because doctors and hospitals fear the legal implications of performing a life-saving abortion. The Arkansas Abortion Amendment would allow abortion in Arkansas up to 18 weeks after conception, and in cases of rape, incest, fatal fetal anomaly and to save the life or health of the mother.
The group Arkansans for Limited Government needs to collect more than 90,000 signatures by July 5 to get their amendment on the November ballot. Find out where to sign here.