A federal judge in Idaho blocked part of the state’s strict abortion ban on Wednesday, delivering a limited but significant victory to the Biden administration.
The U.S. Department of Justice sued the state earlier this month over the ban, which was to go into effect on Thursday, arguing that it violates a federal law guaranteeing access to emergency medical care, reports ABC News.
Specifically, the DOJ is referring to the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act, which bars states from imposing restrictions that would prevent emergency room doctors from treating those women.
According to the New York Times, Judge B. Lynn Winmill of the Federal District Court in Idaho wrote that doctors in the state could not be punished for acting to protect the health of endangered mothers, in a preliminary injunction issued a day before the ban was to be enacted.
“It’s not about the bygone constitutional right to an abortion,” he wrote. “The court is called upon to address a far more modest issue — whether Idaho’s criminal abortion statute conflicts with a small but important corner of federal legislation. It does.”
“In short, given the extraordinarily broad scope of Idaho Code § 18-622, neither the State nor the Legislature has convinced the Court that it is possible for healthcare workers to simultaneously comply with their obligations under EMTALA and Idaho statutory law,” the judge wrote. “The state law must therefore yield to federal law to the extent of that conflict.”
The order is a win for the Biden administration, as it has had few tools at its disposal to respond to the Supreme Court’s reversal in June of Roe v. Wade’s federal abortion rights protections.
“Today’s decision by the District Court for the District of Idaho ensures that women in the State of Idaho can obtain the emergency medical treatment to which they are entitled under federal law. This includes abortion when that is the necessary treatment,” Attorney General Merrick Garland said in a statement Wednesday, reports CNN News.