Supreme Court To Let Idaho Kill Pregnant People Until They Get Around To Dealing With It
Supreme Court To Let Idaho Kill Pregnant People Until They Get Around To Dealing With It
Eh, why the rush?
Back in August, the United States District Court for the District of Idaho issued an injunction stopping the state’s entirely sadistic abortion law that bars hospitals from performing emergency abortions in most situations. This was a good decision. A sane decision. It obviously would have been better had the court overruled the law entirely, but the case was instead sent to the Supreme Court.
And on Friday, our Supreme Court decided to lift that injunction and allow the state to ramp up its maternal mortality rate until they are able to officially rule on the case — likely by the end of summer.
At issue is whether or not the Biden administration can require hospitals in states with especially sadistic abortion regulations to adhere to the federal Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act (EMTALA) when the two are in conflict.
EMTALA requires hospitals that have dedicated emergency departments and accept money from the government in the form of Medicare to provide necessary stabilizing treatment to anyone who comes through their doors in a medical emergency, regardless of their ability to pay. This includes performing emergency abortions in the event that the life or health of the mother is in jeopardy.
This conflicts with Idaho’s policy of “not giving a fuck.” More specifically, the law only allows for emergency abortions when the patient’s life is at risk — not just their health. This requires doctors to wait until the situation gets more dangerous and more dire before giving people the treatment they need … which is pretty much the exact opposite of what you want doctors to do in an emergency medical situation. Chances of survival are a hell of lot higher when we are talking about health than when we are talking about life and death.
To understand what the hell is going on here, we must first understand that there are people who view a mother dying in childbirth as a beautiful thing, a beautiful sacrifice that they would like to believe their own mother would have made for them. Saving the life of the mother, who has already had her opportunity to accept Jesus Christ as her personal savior, comes second to saving a fetus before they have that chance and are, presumably, just sent to hell (since limbo isn’t a thing anymore). When you see women primarily as baby-making vessels, not dying in childbirth is just shirking their responsibilities. God put that baby there and if he didn’t want a woman to die giving birth to it, he wouldn’t have created whatever condition caused that to happen.
It is not that they are overlooking the danger here — it’s that they know it exists and, at least in the hypothetical arena where it’s never going to directly affect them, they do not care. Women have already died due to these abortion laws, and they do not care.
From now until the Supreme Court gets around to ruling on this case — they’re hearing it starting in April but it could take months before the actual ruling is issued — the life of every pregnant person in Idaho is in danger. Any one of them could have a sudden medical issue, could suffer an accident, could have something happen that lands them in a hospital with a doctor who has to wait and wait and wait until they are on the very precipice of death before giving them the treatment they need.
It’s not going to end well.
I developed pre-eclampsia in my last week of pregnancy and, three days after I got out of the hospital from my cesarean, was readmitted for another two nights because the retained fluid was putting noticable stress on my heart and lungs.
Happily, I had gotten to 37 weeks before disintegrating so my son was just fine being hatched and had my parents and husband to care for him while I was readmitted. But let me tell you, as I waited for cardiology to come tell me if my lab results were pointing to something that would kill me in a few years (so far, they are not) I thought a lot about the possibility of leaving my baby without a mother and I did not find it to be beautiful.
𝑨𝒕 𝒊𝒔𝒔𝒖𝒆 𝒊𝒔 𝒘𝒉𝒆𝒕𝒉𝒆𝒓 𝒐𝒓 𝒏𝒐𝒕 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝑩𝒊𝒅𝒆𝒏 𝒂𝒅𝒎𝒊𝒏𝒊𝒔𝒕𝒓𝒂𝒕𝒊𝒐𝒏 𝒄𝒂𝒏 𝒓𝒆𝒒𝒖𝒊𝒓𝒆 𝒉𝒐𝒔𝒑𝒊𝒕𝒂𝒍𝒔 𝒊𝒏 𝒔𝒕𝒂𝒕𝒆𝒔 𝒘𝒊𝒕𝒉 𝒆𝒔𝒑𝒆𝒄𝒊𝒂𝒍𝒍𝒚 𝒔𝒂𝒅𝒊𝒔𝒕𝒊𝒄 𝒂𝒃𝒐𝒓𝒕𝒊𝒐𝒏 𝒓𝒆𝒈𝒖𝒍𝒂𝒕𝒊𝒐𝒏𝒔 𝒕𝒐 𝒂𝒅𝒉𝒆𝒓𝒆 𝒕𝒐 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒇𝒆𝒅𝒆𝒓𝒂𝒍 𝑬𝒎𝒆𝒓𝒈𝒆𝒏𝒄𝒚 𝑴𝒆𝒅𝒊𝒄𝒂𝒍 𝑻𝒓𝒆𝒂𝒕𝒎𝒆𝒏𝒕 𝒂𝒏𝒅 𝑳𝒂𝒃𝒐𝒓 𝑨𝒄𝒕 (𝑬𝑴𝑻𝑨𝑳𝑨) 𝒘𝒉𝒆𝒏 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒕𝒘𝒐 𝒂𝒓𝒆 𝒊𝒏 𝒄𝒐𝒏𝒇𝒍𝒊𝒄𝒕.
What is the point of having federal law if it doesn't automatically supersede state law?