Neil Gorsuch Presses Lawyer In Idaho Abortion Case On EMTALA Statue Referencing ‘The Unborn Child’

5 months ago

Justice Neil Gorsuch questioned Joshua Turner, attorney for Idaho's Office of the Attorney General, during Wednesday’s oral arguments in Moyle v. United States & Idaho v. United States.

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Transcript

00:00 Justice Gorsuch? I just wanted to understand some of your responses or efforts to respond

00:08 to some of the questions that we've heard today. As I read your briefs, you thought

00:15 Idaho thinks that in cases of molar and ectopic pregnancies, for example, that an abortion

00:22 is acceptable. Correct, Your Honor. And the example of someone who isn't immediately going

00:29 to die but may at some point in the future, that that would be acceptable. It goes back

00:35 to the good faith medical standard, but yes, if the doctor cannot determine in good faith

00:41 that death is going to afflict that woman, then no. So it doesn't matter whether it happens

00:48 tomorrow or next week or a month from now? There is no imminency requirement. This whole

00:53 notion of delayed care is just not consistent with the Idaho Supreme Court's reading of

00:58 the statute and what the statute says. And the good faith, as I read the Idaho Supreme

01:03 Court opinion, that that controls, that's the end of it. Absolutely it is. And then

01:09 what do we do with MTALA's definition of individual to include both the woman and, as the statute

01:16 says, the unborn child? Yeah, we're not saying, Your Honor, that MTALA prohibits abortions.

01:24 So for example, in California, stabilizing treatment may involve abortions consistent

01:31 with what that state law allows its doctors to perform. But I think our point with the

01:38 unborn child amendment in 1989 is that it would be a very strange thing for Congress

01:43 to expressly amend MTALA to require care for unborn children. And it's not just when the

01:50 child, when the mother is experiencing active labor. The definition of emergency medical

01:54 condition requires care when the child itself has an emergency medical condition regardless

02:00 of what's going on with the mother. And so it would be a strange thing for Congress to

02:03 have regard for the unborn child and yet also be mandating termination of unborn children.

Neil Gorsuch Presses Lawyer In Idaho Abortion Case On EMTALA Statue Referencing ‘The Unborn Child’

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