Today, our firm file an amicus brief in support of Idaho’s law protecting the life of the unborn after the Supreme Court’s decision in Dobbs in 2022 which reversed Roe v. Wade. The federal government sued Idaho, asserting that the federal Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act (EMTALA) preempts Idaho’s law banning abortion in most circumstances. Our brief argued that the Secretary of Health and Human Services lacked the statutory authority to issue the guidance to hospitals claiming that EMTALA requires hospitals to perform abortions. We also explained that 1989 amendments to EMTALA to consider the health of the unborn child, something that neither the HHS guidance nor the Ninth Circuit took into consideration. Our brief showed that the Biden Administration and the Ninth Circuit are undermining the Dobbs decision which returned the issue of abortion to the States. Finally, we argued that the HHS guidance is an effort to establish a federal police power contrary to the balance struck in the Constitution.
