The Trump administration has moved to dismiss a long-standing legal battle with Idaho over access to emergency abortion care.
“We knew this was coming, but that doesn’t make it any less devastating,” Jessica Valenti, a journalist and abortion rights advocate, wrote in her Substack, Abortion, Everyday. “By dropping this case, the Trump administration is sending a clear message that anti-abortion states don’t have to adhere to [the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act] by giving pregnant patients life-saving care.”
In August 2022, the Biden administration sued Idaho over its near-total abortion ban, arguing that its enforcement in medical emergencies constituted a violation of the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act (EMTALA), a federal patient protection law enacted under President Reagan. The Supreme Court initially accepted the case but ultimately sent it back to lower courts, stating that the case had been heard too early.
Since the Supreme Court’s decision, health care providers in Idaho have been able to perform emergency abortions as the lawsuit progressed through the courts. However, Politico reports that such care may be in jeopardy now that the Trump administration is moving to dismiss the case.
“Because there is currently a preliminary injunction in place in DOJ’s case protecting doctors’ and hospitals’ ability to provide emergency care in Idaho, dismissal of that case will leave the health and lives of pregnant Idahoans hanging in the balance,” Deirdre Schifeling, chief political and advocacy officer at the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), said in a press release.
To prevent the provision of emergency abortions from becoming illegal, the Boise hospital network St. Luke’s — which sued the state in January, in anticipation that the Trump administration would dismiss the case — urged the court to issue a temporary restraining order to keep emergency abortion care legal despite the DOJ’s dismissal.
“Even a short period without an injunction would require Idaho hospitals to train their staff about the change in legal obligations, distracting them from providing medical care to their patients, and would once again require them to airlift patients out of state should a medical emergency arise so that those patients can consider the full spectrum of medically indicated care, including termination of pregnancy,” the lawyers representing St. Luke’s wrote in the filing. “A [temporary restraining order] is necessary to avoid that harm to patients and their families as well as to St. Luke’s and its staff.”
Idaho U.S. District Court Judge B. Lynn Winmill granted the temporary restraining order on Tuesday night, prohibiting Attorney General Raúl Labrador and his deputies from prosecuting medical providers who perform abortions in medical emergencies.
While the Trump administration had previously claimed that it would not interfere with abortion access or patients’ ability to receive necessary care, some legal scholars believe that the dismissal of this case signals the administration’s anti-abortion stance and could mark the beginning of an escalating attack on abortion.
“I expect we’ll see more of the same in the months to come: the Trump Administration slowly and without fanfare adopting the positions abortion opponents want, even on issues, like this, that won’t play well politically,” University of California, Davis law professor Mary Ziegler said on Bluesky.
For example, while the Trump administration has not yet clarified whether it will revoke the Biden administration’s 2022 directive, which requires hospitals to provide emergency stabilizing care — including abortions when medically necessary — regardless of state restrictions, the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 has urged the administration to repeal this guidance and called on President Donald Trump to halt all EMTALA investigations into hospitals that have denied care to pregnant patients.
In fact, the abortion advocacy group Reproductive Freedom for All has said that the Trump administration’s dismissal of this emergency abortion case is “straight out of Project 2025’s extreme playbook.”
“[This dismissal is] the latest proof that the Trump administration will stop at nothing to ban abortion nationwide and abuse the power of every federal agency to carry out that mission — with zero regard for how many people suffer or die in its pursuit of power and control,” Reproductive Freedom for All said in a statement.
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