Trump administration moves to drop Idaho emergency abortion case with national implications

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Trump administration on Wednesday moved to drop an emergency abortion case in Idaho in one of its first moves on the issue since President Donald Trump began his second term.

The Justice Department filed a motion to dismiss the lawsuit, which was originally filed by the Biden administration, in a reversal that could have national implications for urgent care.

The Biden administration had argued that emergency-room doctors treating pregnant women had to provide terminations if necessary in Idaho, which has one of the country's strictest abortion bans.

The Democratic administration had given similar guidance to hospitals nationwide in the wake of the Supreme Court 2022 decision overturning the right to abortion. It's being challenged in other conservative states.

In Idaho, the state argued that its law does allow life-saving abortions and the Biden administration wrongly sought to expand the exceptions. The state agrees with the dismissal, so it does not need judicial approval, Justice Department attorneys wrote in court documents.

Idaho doctors, meanwhile, say it remains unclear which abortions are legal, forcing them to airlift pregnant women of state if a termination might be part of the standard of care. It's often unclear in fast-moving emergencies whether pregnancy complications could ultimately prove fatal, doctors said.

McKay Cunningham, a professor of reproductive rights and constitutional law at the College of Idaho, said numerous doctors in the state – including some who oppose elective abortion – have told him “Damocles’ sword hangs over them all the time.”

St. Luke’s Health System, the state's largest, said it airlifted six patients out of state to treat medical emergencies when the ban was in force between January and April 2024. Only one needed similar treatment in all of 2023.

A judge has temporarily blocked Idaho from any abortion ban enforcement that would change emergency treatment.

In his first term, Trump, a Republican, appointed many of the Supreme Court justices who voted to overturned the constitutional right to abortion. He has since said the issue should be left to the states.

Complaints that pregnant women were turned away from U.S. emergency rooms spiked after the overturning of Roe v. Wade amid questions about what care hospitals could legally provide, federal records showed.

The Supreme Court stepped into the Idaho case last year. It ultimately handed down a narrow ruling that allowed hospitals to keep making determinations about emergency pregnancy terminations but left key legal questions unresolved.

The case went before the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in December. Those judges have not yet ruled.

About 50,000 people in the U.S. develop life-threatening pregnancy complications each year, including major blood loss, sepsis or the loss of reproductive organs. In rare cases, doctors might need to terminate a pregnancy to protect the health of the pregnant person, especially in cases where there is no chance for a fetus to survive.

Most Republican-controlled states have started enforcing new bans or restrictions since 2022. Currently, 12 states are enforcing bans on abortion at all stages of pregnancy, with limited exceptions, and four have bans that kick in at or about six weeks into pregnancy — often before women realize they’re pregnant.

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Boone reported from Boise. Associated Press Science Writer Laura Ungar contributed from Louisville, Kentucky.