Posted on Thursday, March 6, 2025
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by Outside Contributor
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President Donald Trump has dropped a lawsuit Joe Biden filed attempting to force Idaho to allow abortions.
Idaho’s Defense of Life Act protects the lives of women and their unborn children, preventing doctors from performing abortions unless necessary to save the life of the mother or in cases of rape or incest.
In August 2022, the Biden-Harris administration sued Idaho, claiming that it could use the federal Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act (EMTALA) to force hospitals to kill babies in elective abortions.
Idaho had been fighting back in court at the time President Donald Trump was inaugurated.
Now, the Trump administration has cancelled the lawsuit, which means the federal government will no longer attempt to force Idaho to violate its own pro-life law. In a court filing Wednesday, the Justice Department said it was now dropping the lawsuit.
There are two lawsuits against Idaho’s pro-life law — one from the Biden administration and another from the St. Luke’s hospital system, which brought its own lawsuit and falsely claimed women can’t get emergency medical care or abortions to save their lives in the ultra rare case that might somehow be necessary. The claim is false.
Trump’s move dismisses one lawsuit and could help Idaho fight back against the other.
Late on Tuesday, Clinton-appointed U.S. District Court Judge B. Lynn Winmill sided with the abortion lobby and issued a temporary order blocking the state attorney general’s office from enforcing the law, pending a hearing.
Katie Daniel, a pro-life attorney with SBA ProLife, told LifeNews that she applauds Trump’s move to help Idaho.
“Democrats’ abortion extremism cost them the election. With President Trump and a new administration in charge, Biden’s weaponization of the federal government is over – no more lawfare. The will of the people is clear and activist judges must not interfere,” she said.
Daniel added:
“Idaho’s Defense of Life Act protecting babies and their mothers throughout pregnancy was upheld by the state Supreme Court in 2023. There is no conflict between Idaho’s law and federal law, which never mentions abortion but specifically mentions several times that the ‘unborn child’ is also a patient any time a pregnant woman comes to the emergency room. Idaho’s law protects more than 1,500 babies a year, and like every pro-life law in the country, nothing in it stops pregnant women from receiving emergency medical care. This care is absolutely legal.
“We thank President Trump, Attorney General Pam Bondi, and our allies in Idaho, particularly state Attorney General Raul Labrador. We continue encouraging every pro-life state to adopt ‘Med Ed’ policies to make it crystal clear how doctors can use their medical judgment and comply with the law. Politically motivated lies and excuses are harming women and their babies and they need to stop.”
The U.S. Supreme Court had previously addressed this issue, remanding the case to lower courts without a definitive ruling on the merits. This left unresolved questions about the interplay between federal emergency care requirements and state-imposed abortion bans.
But as Idaho explains, the federal government cannot use its Spending Clause power to pay private parties to circumvent state law.
Idaho Attorney General Raúl Labrador previously commented on the case in remarks to LifeNews:
“The Biden-Harris administration’s radical interpretation of federal law shows a lawless disregard for Idaho’s right to protect life. Idaho’s Defense of Life Act is perfectly consistent with the federal Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act, which requires doctors to care both for women and their ‘unborn children.’ At the U.S. Supreme Court and in the 9th Circuit, the administration has repeated St. Luke’s hospital’s unsubstantiated claim that Idaho’s law required women to be emergency airlifted from our state to obtain an abortion. But when questioned under oath, St. Luke’s admitted it did not know why the women were transferred. In fact, one of the women airlifted out of state gave birth to healthy twins from ‘very much a wanted pregnancy.’ Idaho’s law expects doctors to save women’s lives.”
A pro-life attorney agrees with the analysis.
“Both Idaho’s law and EMTALA seek to protect the lives of women and their unborn children, and the consistency between those laws makes us confident about the future of this case,” said ADF Senior Counsel Erin Hawley, vice president of the ADF Center for Life and Regulatory Practice. “Moreover, the government’s claim that it can use its spending power to override any state law it doesn’t like is breathtaking. It’s also wrong. The Biden-Harris administration can’t pay private hospitals to violate state law. Under Idaho’s law, doctors will continue to provide care to women experiencing ectopic pregnancies, miscarriages, and life-threatening conditions. We join this broad range of advocates in urging the court to end the administration’s unlawful overreach and protect the people’s freedom to preserve life.”
“EMTALA cannot be read to preempt state laws regulating medicine, including abortion restrictions,” explains the brief filed by Indiana and 19 other states. “The statute requires hospitals accepting Medicaid and Medicare funds to stabilize patients with emergency medical conditions. But EMTALA does not purport to establish national standards as to what care is, or is not, medically necessary or appropriate. It simply prevents hospitals from refusing to stabilize patients using otherwise lawful medical procedures. Construing EMTALA’s stabilization requirement as requiring hospitals to provide abortions in violation of state law is particularly implausible.”
“By definition, measures taken to save the mother, the preborn child, or both are not considered ‘abortions’ in either common or medical parlance,” adds the brief filed by The American Association of Pro-Life Obstetricians & Gynecologists. “The effort to blur this terminology is nothing more than a misguided attempt to both normalize induced abortions and to conscript EMTALA into requiring the provision of those abortions nationwide.”
Reprinted with Permission from LifeNews.com – By Steven Ertelt
The opinions expressed by columnists are their own and do not necessarily represent the views of AMAC or AMAC Action.
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