Abortion Blues

Conservatives wanting to have it both ways on the abortion issue have long said that they supported medical exceptions protecting the life of the mother. But as in the case of Texas woman Kate Cox or the multiple women suing the state in the Amanda Zurawski matter, in practice, they don't really mean it. It is bullshit, don't believe them.

Women and doctors who facilitate abortion are threatened and charged in numerous ways and the pro lifers don't really care if the mother dies as long as they can save the embryo, no matter how damaged it might be.

The Supreme Court of the United States in now apparently fully on board with denying abortions even when doing so risks killing the mother. They are allowing Idaho to enforce a law denying abortions when a mother's life is at risk.

Idaho makes it a crime with a prison term of up to five years for anyone who performs or assists in an abortion.

But the administration argues EMTALA requires health care providers to perform abortions for emergency room patients when needed to treat an emergency medical condition, even if doing so might conflict with a state’s abortion restrictions.

Those conditions include severe bleeding, preeclampsia and certain pregnancy-related infections.

“For certain medical emergencies, abortion care is the necessary stabilizing treatment,” Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar wrote in an administration filing at the Supreme Court.

The state argued that the administration was misusing a law intended to prevent hospitals from dumping patients and imposing “a federal abortion mandate” on states. “EMTALA says nothing about abortion,” Idaho Attorney General Raul Labrador told the court in a brief.

Just Tuesday, the federal appeals court in New Orleans came to the same conclusion as Labrador. A three-judge panel ruled that the administration cannot use EMTALA to require hospitals in Texas to provide abortions for women whose lives are at risk due to pregnancy. Two of the three judges are appointees of President Donald Trump, and the other was appointed by another Republican president, George W. Bush.

The appeals court affirmed a ruling by U.S. District Judge James Wesley Hendrix, also a Trump appointee. Hendrix wrote that adopting the Biden administration’s view would force physicians to place the health of the pregnant person over that of the fetus or embryo even though EMTALA “is silent as to abortion.”

Read that last line again. Let it sink in. The fetus or embryo's rights now trump that of the parent, no matter if it kills her or if the baby has no chance to live.

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There was another decision along the same lines this week by the Federal Appeals Court in Texas.

Federal regulations do not require emergency rooms to perform life-saving abortions if it would run afoul of state law, a federal appeals court ruled Tuesday.

After the overturn of Roe v. Wade in June 2022, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services sent hospitals guidance, reminding them of their obligation to offer stabilizing care, including medically necessary abortions, under the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act (EMTALA).

“When a state law prohibits abortion and does not include an exception for the life of the pregnant person — or draws the exception more narrowly than EMTALA’s emergency medical condition definition — that state law is preempted,” the guidance said.

Texas sued, saying this was tantamount to a “nationwide mandate that every hospital and emergency-room physician perform abortions.” Several anti-abortion medical associations joined the lawsuit as well.

These people are sick. No abortions for rape or incest, no abortions when the mother's life is in jeopardy. I despise these people. And the SCOTUS theocracy majority that continues to thumb their nose at both women and a large majority of the American people.

Alito, Kavanaugh, Barrett, Gorsuch and Thomas thought it would be cute to throw the matter back to the states and that abortion bans would be a slamdunk.

But look at the scoreboard, red, blue or purple state, it is now 8-0 for personal reproductive freedom. That is why there is now talk again of a national ban and bills in state legislatures to curtail ballot propositions on the issue.

Because they know they are losers. Democracy goes in the toilet when their partisan positions are threatened. Can't wait for the Trump candidacy decision, they will wriggle right out of their originalist socks trying to deliver one for the home team.