Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals Hears Arguments in Moyle vs. United States After Supreme Court Declined To Rule

Pasadena, CA – Today, an en banc panel of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals will hear oral arguments in Moyle vs. United States, a case that involves access to federally protected emergency abortion care in Idaho, following the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to send the case back to the lower court earlier this year. Democracy Forward has represented major medical organizations in filing amicus briefs in this matter at the federal district court, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, and the U.S. Supreme Court, as well as in a related challenge to the Biden administration’s guidance on EMTALA protections, Texas v. Becerra.

The case revolves around the clash between Idaho’s strict abortion ban and the federal Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act (EMTALA), a longstanding federal law that requires that hospitals receiving certain federal funds provide health and life-saving treatment to individuals facing emergency medical conditions, including when that care is abortion. Idaho’s law prohibits nearly all abortions, even when a pregnant person’s health is seriously at risk, creating a conflict with the federal protections that require hospitals to deliver necessary emergency care.

“For years, the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act has protected all people, including pregnant people, who present to an emergency room in need of emergency care to save their life or their health and it is disturbing that states like Idaho are now seeking to deprive pregnant patients of those federal protections” said Skye Perryman, president and CEO of Democracy Forward. “The nation’s leading medical doctors and health care professionals have described the harms of a state overriding federal protections for the lives of women and mothers, the medical profession, and our society as a whole.  Dire situations have resulted from states seeking to deprive people of federally protected emergency care and we urge the Court of Appeals to reject Idaho’s attempt to skirt federal protections.” 

In March, a broad coalition of major medical organizations, physicians, people who have been denied critical health and life-saving emergency abortion care, former HHS officials, Members of Congress, states, cities, counties, prosecutors, public health experts, legal scholars, businesses, advocates for disability rights and survivors of intimate partner violence, abortion funds, and more than 100 gender justice, reproductive rights and justice, civil rights, and labor organizations filed 27 amicus briefs with the US Supreme Court in support of the federal government’s challenge to Idaho’s statute, emphasizing the essential nature of stabilizing emergency care for all, regardless of state laws.

On June 27, 2024, the Supreme Court declined to rule on the merits, stating that it should not have taken the case when it did and sent the case back to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. In doing so, the Supreme Court failed to provide needed clarity that the US Constitution precludes state abortion bans from overriding federal emergency care protections for pregnant patients. 

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Democracy Forward is a national legal organization that advances democracy and social progress through litigation, policy and public education, and regulatory engagement. For more information, please visit www.democracyforward.org.