WASHINGTON — The Trump administration moved Wednesday to drop an emergency abortion case in Idaho in one of the administration’s first moves on the issue since President Donald Trump took office.
The Justice Department filed a motion to dismiss the Biden administration lawsuit in a reversal that could have national implications for urgent care.
The case had argued that emergency-room doctors treating pregnant women had to provide terminations if needed to save their lives or to avoid serious health consequences 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.
Idaho doctors, meanwhile, say it remains unclear which abortion 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 in court documents.
A judge has blocked Idaho from any abortion ban enforcement that would change emergency treatment at the state’s largest hospital system for now.
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