The US District Court for the District of Idaho on Thursday granted a preliminary injunction to block the enforcement of Idaho’s near-total ban against Idaho ER doctors from performing emergency abortions.

St. Luke’s Health System sued Idaho Attorney General Raul Labrador on January 14,  in anticipation of the Trump administration dropping the Biden administration’s case against the state for its abortion ban. The Idaho Capital Sun  reported, “St. Luke’s operates eight of the 39 hospitals in Idaho that accept Medicare funding, and it delivered more than 40% of the 22,000 babies born in the state in 2024.”

Idaho’s Defense of Life Act (DLA) bans abortion in the state but provides exceptions for first-trimester abortions if the mother reported herself as a victim of rape or incest to the police, or for preventing the death of the mother. It was passed in 2020 and was set to take effect on August 25, 2022, around two months after the US Supreme Court’s Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision overturned Roe v. Wade‘s near-five-decade federal constitutional protection of abortion.

St. Luke’s reasserted the Biden administration’s claim that Idaho’s DLA conflicts with the US’s Emergency Medical Treatment & Labor Act (EMTALA) passed in 1986. They argue that DLA violates the US Constitution because the Supremacy Clause preempts state law from conflicting with federal law.

EMTALA generally requires Medicare-funded hospitals to provide patients with the medical examinations and treatments “as may be required to stabilize the[ir emergency] medical condition.” EMTALA’s definition of an emergency medical condition includes “(i) … [the patient’s health being] in serious jeopardy, (ii) serious impairment to bodily functions, or (iii) serious dysfunction of any bodily organ or part[.]”

St. Luke’s maintained the Biden administration’s claim that DLA criminalizes hospitals performing abortions for emergency medical conditions other than the death of the mother. It further held that Idaho’s law will make “St. Luke’s providers … once again immediately be subject to the threat of arrest, imprisonment, criminal liability, and loss of license for providing federally required care, and St. Luke’s will immediately be at risk of losing its Medicare funding and facing civil litigation and liability.”

Labrador argued against the preliminary injunction, stating that EMTALA does not mention abortion and St. Luke’s cannot show that EMTALA “has [ever] required St. Luke’s to perform a pre-viability abortion to stabilize an emergency medical condition, which demonstrates that there is no conflict and no preemption issue.” Additionally, he contended that St. Luke’s treatment of EMTALA as an abortion mandate is not consistent with EMTALA being an exercise of Congress’s Commerce Clause.

The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) released a statement celebrating the injunction. Chief legal officer and general counsel of ACOG Molly Meegan stated:

ACOG is relieved that for the time being, clinicians in Idaho can provide their pregnant patients with the emergency care they need, including abortion. Abortion is an essential part of health care, and for many patients experiencing obstetric emergencies, abortion care can save lives and protect long-term health … We will do all that we can to ensure that the courts hear an evidence-based voice as this case moves through the judicial system, and we will continue to advocate for the end of all abortion bans.