www.nytimes.com
Open in
urlscan Pro
151.101.1.164
Public Scan
URL:
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/05/01/podcasts/the-daily/abortion-supreme-court-emtala.html
Submission: On May 03 via manual from US — Scanned from US
Submission: On May 03 via manual from US — Scanned from US
Form analysis 2 forms found in the DOM
POST https://nytimes.app.goo.gl/?link=https://www.nytimes.com/2024/05/01/podcasts/the-daily/abortion-supreme-court-emtala.html&apn=com.nytimes.android&amv=9837&ibi=com.nytimes.NYTimes&isi=284862083
<form method="post" action="https://nytimes.app.goo.gl/?link=https://www.nytimes.com/2024/05/01/podcasts/the-daily/abortion-supreme-court-emtala.html&apn=com.nytimes.android&amv=9837&ibi=com.nytimes.NYTimes&isi=284862083"
data-testid="MagicLinkForm" style="visibility: hidden;"><input name="client_id" type="hidden" value="web.fwk.vi"><input name="redirect_uri" type="hidden"
value="https://nytimes.app.goo.gl/?link=https://www.nytimes.com/2024/05/01/podcasts/the-daily/abortion-supreme-court-emtala.html&apn=com.nytimes.android&amv=9837&ibi=com.nytimes.NYTimes&isi=284862083"><input name="response_type"
type="hidden" value="code"><input name="state" type="hidden" value="no-state"><input name="scope" type="hidden" value="default"></form>POST https://nytimes.app.goo.gl/?link=https://www.nytimes.com/2024/05/01/podcasts/the-daily/abortion-supreme-court-emtala.html&apn=com.nytimes.android&amv=9837&ibi=com.nytimes.NYTimes&isi=284862083
<form method="post" action="https://nytimes.app.goo.gl/?link=https://www.nytimes.com/2024/05/01/podcasts/the-daily/abortion-supreme-court-emtala.html&apn=com.nytimes.android&amv=9837&ibi=com.nytimes.NYTimes&isi=284862083"
data-testid="MagicLinkForm" style="visibility: hidden;"><input name="client_id" type="hidden" value="web.fwk.vi"><input name="redirect_uri" type="hidden"
value="https://nytimes.app.goo.gl/?link=https://www.nytimes.com/2024/05/01/podcasts/the-daily/abortion-supreme-court-emtala.html&apn=com.nytimes.android&amv=9837&ibi=com.nytimes.NYTimes&isi=284862083"><input name="response_type"
type="hidden" value="code"><input name="state" type="hidden" value="no-state"><input name="scope" type="hidden" value="default"></form>Text Content
Skip to contentSkip to site indexSearch & Section NavigationSection Navigation SEARCH The Daily SUBSCRIBE FOR $1/WEEKLog in Friday, May 3, 2024 Today’s Paper SUBSCRIBE FOR $1/WEEK The Daily|The New Abortion Fight Before the Supreme Court https://www.nytimes.com/2024/05/01/podcasts/the-daily/abortion-supreme-court-emtala.html * Share full article * * * 19 For more audio journalism and storytelling, download New York Times Audio, a new iOS app available for news subscribers. transcript Back to The Daily bars 0:00/35:16 -35:16 transcript THE NEW ABORTION FIGHT BEFORE THE SUPREME COURT THE BIDEN ADMINISTRATION IS ARGUING THAT IDAHO’S NEAR-TOTAL ABORTION BAN VIOLATES A FEDERAL LAW ON EMERGENCY TREATMENT. 2024-05-01T06:00:05-04:00 This transcript was created using speech recognition software. While it has been reviewed by human transcribers, it may contain errors. Please review the episode audio before quoting from this transcript and email transcripts@nytimes.com with any questions. sabrina tavernise From “The New York Times,” I’m Sabrina Tavernise. And this is “The Daily.” [MUSIC PLAYING] As the presidential race moves into high gear, abortion is at the center of it. Republican-controlled states continue to impose new bans, including just this week in Florida. But in Washington, the Biden administration is fighting back, challenging one of those bands in a case that is now before the Supreme Court. Today, my colleagues, Pam Belluck and Abbie VanSickle explain. [MUSIC PLAYING] It’s Wednesday, May 1st. [MUSIC PLAYING] So, Pam, in the two years since Roe v. Wade was overturned, more than a dozen states have instituted pretty strict bans. But as all of these bans are happening at the state level, something is happening at the federal level. And that is the Biden administration is fighting back in a kind of unusual way. And that effort came to the Supreme Court last week. Tell me about it. pam belluck Yeah so the case that went before the Supreme Court last week is basically a fight between the state of Idaho and the Biden administration over whether Idaho’s abortion ban violates a federal law that’s been on the books for decades. And if it does, then does Idaho have to change its abortion ban? And this case really gets at a bigger question about whether there are still ways that the federal government can limit states’ ability to ban or restrict abortion. Dobbs eliminated the constitutional right to abortion, right. It said that there’s no guarantee anywhere in the country that people have a right to abortion access, and that states can make their own laws around abortion. But it didn’t completely eliminate any other way that federal government, laws, or regulations interact with abortion. sabrina tavernise Right. pam belluck So that left the Biden administration looking around to try to figure out what, if anything, the federal government could do to weigh in on abortion. And it turned out that there were really very few tools left to the federal government. But it does find this one federal law from 40 years ago. And the law really has nothing to do with abortion. It doesn’t mention abortion. It is all about emergency room medical care. But the Biden administration thinks that it has found a way to use this law to fight some of the strictest abortion bans that states like Idaho are putting into play. sabrina tavernise Interesting. So the Biden administration is kind of rummaging around in its back closet, right, looking for ways to protect abortion rights. There’s nothing really there. But it finds this kind of old dress, this law you’re talking about. Tell me about this law. pam belluck Right. So this is the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act. As an abbreviation, it’s referred to as EMTALA. And EMTALA was passed to try to fix a problem that was getting increasingly widespread in the country in the 1980s. And what was happening was a problem called patient dumping. What this meant was that mostly private hospitals, if a patient showed up to their emergency room and the patient didn’t have insurance or couldn’t otherwise pay, these private hospitals were closing their doors to these patients. And they were sending them to public hospitals, county hospitals. And there were these horrific examples of people who were showing up in emergency rooms at public hospitals, having been kicked out of the private hospital with stab wounds and gunshot wounds. I mean, there was one case in Texas where a man with third-degree burns stumbled into a county hospital with a catheter and an IV line that had been inserted by the private hospital that had kicked him out. sabrina tavernise My God. pam belluck And this was creating a lot of public alarm and getting a lot of attention. And some of the cases involved pregnant women in labor. And these private hospitals were turning them away before their babies could be born. And one example in Texas, this woman went to a private hospital. And when she told them that her husband had just lost his job, they pushed her legs together, started an IV line, and sent her over to this county hospital. And she was crowning, according to the doctor who was at the hospital. And the baby was just coming any minute. She delivered in the hallway of the hospital. sabrina tavernise So this is a serious public problem. pam belluck Yeah. And Congress is under pressure to take action to try to prevent this. And so in 1986, they enact EMTALA, this federal law, which really was landmark. It was really kind of groundbreaking. And basically, what this law does is it says, emergency rooms in hospitals that receive Medicare funding, which is almost all hospitals in the country, have to treat any patient that shows up with any emergency medical condition. It requires emergency rooms to stabilize the patient. They have to give at least a basic standard of treatment to make sure that their health doesn’t get worse, that their condition doesn’t deteriorate. And if they can’t do that, they don’t have the ability to do that, they have to transfer the patient to a hospital that can. And it crucially does not matter if they can’t pay for it or if they have no insurance. sabrina tavernise But where does abortion come into this? We’re obviously talking about this in the context of an abortion fight, right? I mean, from what you’re saying, it sounds like this law really had to do with women who were coming in trying to deliver babies, not women who were coming in, trying to have abortions to get rid of babies. pam belluck Exactly. I mean, abortion is not mentioned in EMTALA. And it was not really something that even came up in the passage of the law. The law was really addressing these horror stories of women in labor being turned away from hospital emergency rooms. But the law does include this two-word phrase that decades later becomes part of the abortion debate. And that phrase is “unborn child.” Now, at the time, that phrase shows up very much in this context that we’ve been talking about, of women who are about to deliver a baby. So abortion is not mentioned in this law at all. And it wasn’t even really in the background of — at the time when it was passed. After EMTALA is passed, it has been used over the last four decades to basically try to ensure that patients with all kinds of conditions don’t get turned away from emergency rooms. And it doesn’t come into the abortion debate until nearly four decades later when the Biden administration decides that it can use this law to try to at least open some cracks into these very rigid state abortion bans. sabrina tavernise So you brought us back to the beginning where we started this conversation, which is this current case, Idaho versus the Biden administration. So how did that fight actually break out? pam belluck Yeah. So after Roe v. Wade was overturned, a number of states, including Idaho, put into place near-total abortion bans. Idaho’s ban has very limited exceptions for abortion. And one of the only times abortion is allowed is to keep a pregnant woman from dying. But the Biden administration issues a memo. And it says, hey, hospitals, hey, states. We’re just reminding you the interpretation of EMTALA applies to women who come to emergency rooms and need emergency abortions. So what the Biden administration is saying is this federal law says, preventing death is not the only reason that emergency rooms have to treat people. They also have to prevent people’s health situation from getting worse, because there are many situations where a woman is bleeding severely, or she has a severe infection, but maybe she’s not about to die. And so there’s a pretty wide Gulf between situations where a pregnant woman might need an abortion to save her life and when she might need an abortion to protect her health. sabrina tavernise So the Biden administration is saying, look, this federal law requires that you protect not just the woman’s life, but also the woman’s health, which, of course, brings it into direct conflict with Idaho’s ban, right? pam belluck Exactly. And what the Biden administration is going after here is something much broader, something that goes beyond emergency room care. What they’re targeting here is the concept in Idaho’s ban that you can’t intervene except to save the life of the mother. And by pointing to EMTALA and saying this law requires you to intervene to protect a patient’s health, they want to force states with these strict bans to acknowledge and allow abortions in a number of these cases of pregnancy complications that happen. And by doing that, it really wants to also create a crack in the foundation of these abortion bans. sabrina tavernise Got it. So that’s the crack in the foundation that you’re talking about. It’s not just about this narrow demographic of women who would be in this situation, but it gives them legally, potentially, a path to do something bigger. pam belluck And the Biden administration actually decides to be very aggressive with this EMTALA law. And so very soon after Roe v. Wade is overturned, the Biden administration sues Idaho and says, your abortion ban is violating this federal law and your abortion ban cannot stand. sabrina tavernise And Pam, what does Idaho say in response? What’s its argument here? pam belluck So Idaho says it is not violating EMTALA. And it accuses the Biden administration of wanting to turn emergency rooms into abortion clinics and wanting to force Idaho doctors to provide abortions against Idaho’s law. And this is also where that phrase, “unborn child,” comes up. Idaho is picking up on that language in EMTALA. And it’s saying that because the federal law mentions unborn child, that that means you have two patients to consider when a pregnant woman goes to an emergency room. And if you’re doing an abortion, then you’re, in their view, killing one of those two patients. And that’s why they are outlawing the ability to do that. sabrina tavernise So in other words, this law from 1986 is really being used by both sides through the lens of 2024, both by the Biden administration, who is saying, it says that abortions need to be provided in emergency rooms, and by Idaho saying, no, not so fast, the unborn child has equal protection here because that’s in the law. pam belluck Right. So you have both sides using this 40-year-old law that really had nothing to do with abortion when it was passed, and they’re trying to cast it in a light that serves their side of the abortion debate. And so this case ends up in the Supreme Court. And it’s important to note that this fight isn’t just between Idaho and the Biden administration. There are about half a dozen states that have strict abortion bans like Idaho’s, including Texas, which has been embroiled in a lawsuit over EMTALA with the Biden administration also. So whatever the Supreme Court rules in this case is going to have implications across the country. And it’s going to help shape what states can do if they want to ban or restrict abortion. [MUSIC PLAYING] sabrina tavernise After the break, my colleague, Supreme Court Reporter Abbie VanSickle on the oral arguments. We’ll be right back. So, Abbie, our colleague, Pam Belluck, just walked us through how this very unusual Idaho abortion case got to the Supreme Court. You covered the oral arguments last week. How did they go? abbie vansickle So a lot of the oral argument really focused on a question about how far states can go when they are crafting their own abortion laws. And the backdrop of this is that there’s part of the Constitution that deals with this question of what happens when a state law and a federal law are in conflict. And it’s called preemption. And the general principle is that when a state and federal law collide, if they’re in conflict with each other, that the federal law wins. And so the argument in this case really focused in on whether the Idaho abortion law directly conflicted with the federal EMTALA law or not. archived recording We will hear argument this morning in case 23-726. abbie vansickle And the argument started out with the lawyer for Idaho, Joshua Turner. archived recording Mr. Turner. archived recording (joshua turner) Thank you, Mr. Chief Justice, and may it please the Court. When Congress amended the Medicare Act in 1986, it put EMTALA on a centuries-old foundation of state law. abbie vansickle And Turner says that he does not see a direct conflict between Idaho’s abortion law and the federal law. archived recording (joshua turner) Nothing in EMTALA requires doctors to ignore the scope of their license and offer medical treatments that violate state law. abbie vansickle He argues that, in Idaho, if a woman’s life is in danger, that there are exceptions that allow abortions and that there’s flexibility for doctors to use good faith judgment. And he’s saying that Idaho is satisfying the federal laws requirement to provide women with stabilizing care. archived recording (joshua turner) The court should reject the administration’s unlimited reading of EMTALA and reverse the district court’s judgment. I welcome the court’s questions. sabrina tavernise In other words, nothing to see here. Our ban gives exceptions if the woman’s life is at risk. And that is in full compliance with this federal law, this EMTALA that mandates care, right? So how do the justices respond to this argument Turner’s making? abbie vansickle So when the lawyer for Idaho started making that argument, a group of justices right away seemed skeptical. And those were the liberal justices. archived recording (sonia sotomayor) Counsel, the problem we’re having right now is that you’re sort of putting preemption on its head. abbie vansickle Justice Sonia Sotomayor jumped in pretty quickly to say, what do you mean that there’s not a conflict between Idaho’s abortion law and federal law? archived recording (sonia sotomayor) Idaho law says the doctor has to determine, not that there’s merely a serious medical condition, but that the person will die. That’s a huge difference, Counsel. abbie vansickle And to kind of bring this down to earth — archived recording (sonia sotomayor) Answer the following question, and these are hypotheticals that are true. abbie vansickle — Justice Sotomayor starts with these hypotheticals of cases. And she explains that they’re pulled from real life examples when delaying an abortion until a woman was close to death had permanent effects on the woman’s health. archived recording (sonia sotomayor) Imagine a patient who goes to ER with preprompt 14 weeks. abbie vansickle She gets one example where there’s a patient whose water broke at 14 weeks in the pregnancy. archived recording (sonia sotomayor) She was in and out of the hospital up to 27 weeks. The baby died. She had a hysterectomy, and she can no longer have children. abbie vansickle And she said that delaying an abortion caused this woman to lose her fertility. archived recording (sonia sotomayor) All right, you’re telling me the doctor there couldn’t have done the abortion earlier. abbie vansickle And Justice Sotomayor asks, would Idaho’s abortion ban allow abortions in this kind of situation when a woman’s health is gravely affected, even though she didn’t die? And Idaho’s lawyer responds that it’s up to the doctor. archived recording (joshua turner) Again, it goes back to whether a doctor can, in good faith, medical judgment — archived recording (sonia sotomayor) That’s a lot for the doctor to risk. abbie vansickle And that this is case by case. archived recording (joshua turner) The examples — archived recording (sonia sotomayor) That’s the problem — archived recording (amy coney barrett) I’m kind of shocked, actually, because I thought your own expert had said below that these kinds of cases were covered, and you’re now saying they’re not? abbie vansickle And as this exchange is going on, another justice jumps in, which is a bit of a surprise, because it’s Justice Amy Coney Barrett, who is one of the court’s conservatives. And she jumps in and says — archived recording (amy coney barrett) Well, you’re hedging. I mean, Justice Sotomayor is asking you, would this be covered or not? And it was my understanding that the legislature’s witnesses said that these would be covered. abbie vansickle Wait a second, in the record in the documents leading up to this case, she thought that Idaho was arguing that those kind of examples, the kind of example where a woman needs an abortion or she has to have a hysterectomy, these sort of really extreme loss of organs and loss of future fertility. She says, I thought all of that was covered. sabrina tavernise She’s essentially looking at these medical scenarios and saying, hold on a second, wait, there’s a question here about whether that would be legal and kind of scratching her head, which is interesting and unusual given that she’s a conservative who’s pretty skeptical usually of arguments in favor of abortion rights. abbie vansickle That’s right. And, of course, we can only observe what she said and try to figure it out. But she might have found herself more in an alliance with the liberal justices, which not only would be surprising, given her sort of positions and her past record on abortion, but also could potentially set up a gender split on the Supreme Court in an abortion case, which would be pretty stunning. sabrina tavernise OK. So interesting kind of gender divide forming here. What do the men on the conservative side of the court say? abbie vansickle So the men on the court, the conservative justices, they jumped in pretty quickly after that. And Justice Kavanaugh comes in. archived recording (brett kavanaugh) Just want to focus on the actual dispute as it exists now today. abbie vansickle And he’s kind of suggesting that the justices turn away from the hypotheticals and focus back on what it actually says in the legal documents that were filed by each side before the oral argument. archived recording (joshua turner) You have said, in your brief at least, that each of the conditions identified by the government, actually, Idaho law allows an emergency abortion. abbie vansickle And Justice Kavanaugh says that the federal government, in their briefs, listed all these specific conditions where a woman should be provided access to an abortion under the federal EMTALA law. And based on Idaho’s own legal filings, he says, the state says it would allow exceptions for abortions. In these same types of situations. archived recording (joshua turner) You’re the one who said it in your reply brief that there’s actually no real daylight here in terms of the conditions. So I’m just picking up on what you all said. sabrina tavernise So in other words, the conservative justices are really kind of responding in the way that we would expect them to. They’re sympathetic to Idaho’s argument. They’re saying that law is flexible enough to comply with EMTALA. abbie vansickle That’s right. Thank you, counsel. And so that sort wrapped up the first part of the argument. And the next person up to the podium was the lawyer arguing for the federal government. archived recording General Prelogar. archived recording (elizabeth prelogar) Mr. Chief Justice, and may it please the court. sabrina tavernise So what did the federal government Solicitor General argue? What was her case? abbie vansickle So Elizabeth Prelogar, who — she’s actually from Idaho. sabrina tavernise Oh, right. Yes. abbie vansickle And she argues before the court all the time. And she started out by bringing the argument back to this idea that the liberal justices were really focused on before. archived recording (elizabeth prelogar) No one who comes to an emergency room in need of urgent treatment should be denied necessary stabilizing care — abbie vansickle Which is the federal government’s view that there is a profound gap between what EMTALA requires and what is in the Idaho abortion law. archived recording (elizabeth prelogar) The situation on the ground in Idaho is showing the devastating consequences of that gap. abbie vansickle And she points to the real-life consequences of this. archived recording (elizabeth prelogar) One hospital system in Idaho says that right now, it’s having to transfer pregnant women in medical crisis out of the state about once every other week. That’s untenable. And EMTALA does not countenance it. abbie vansickle And the Solicitor General is saying that this is gotten to the point where every other week Idaho hospitals are airlifting women to hospitals in other states to provide abortion care. sabrina tavernise Airlifted out of state. And is that true? abbie vansickle Yes. So there’s been local reporting in Idaho that since this abortion law has gone into effect, which has just been a number of months, that six women have been airlifted to other states. So Justice Kagan pushes on that. archived recording (elena kagan) It’s become transfer is the appropriate standard of care in Idaho, but it can’t be the right standard of care to force somebody onto a helicopter. abbie vansickle She says that it just doesn’t seem to make sense, that the right standard of care is to put a pregnant woman on a helicopter to another state. archived recording Justice Alito. abbie vansickle But one of the most interesting things that happens in the interaction with the Solicitor General is actually that Justice Alito jumps in. And he sort of takes the conversation in a totally new direction. archived recording (samuel alito) We’ve now heard, let’s see, an hour and a half of argument on this case. And one potentially very important phrase in EMTALA has hardly been mentioned, and that is EMTALA’s reference to the woman’s, quote unquote, “unborn child.” Isn’t that an odd phrase to put in a statute that imposes a mandate to perform abortions? Have you ever seen an abortion statute that uses the phrase unborn child? abbie vansickle And he says, isn’t it strange that this federal law that you are arguing to require abortions includes language that would typically be used by people who are against abortion? archived recording (samuel alito) And it seems that the plain meaning is that the hospital must try to eliminate any immediate threat to the child. But performing an abortion is antithetical to that duty. archived recording (elizabeth prelogar) It’s not an odd phrase when you look at what Congress was doing in 1989. abbie vansickle And the Solicitor General responds by saying, let’s look at back to what this law actually meant and what it was designed to address in the 1980s. And she explains how when this law went into effect, not only would a woman potentially be dumped from one emergency room if she couldn’t pay, but that if a woman came in and the medical problem was actually with the fetus, that she also might be dumped. archived recording (elizabeth prelogar) Congress wanted to expand the protection for pregnant women so that they could get the same duties to screen and stabilize when they have a condition that’s threatening the health and well-being of the unborn child. abbie vansickle And she says that’s actually why the language is there, that it’s not anti-abortion code. sabrina tavernise So what’s Alito really up to here? I mean, clearly, this idea of unborn child, it’s very important in the anti-abortion movement. It’s essentially linked to this idea of personhood, and that the fetus is actually a person that should be protected. But that’s not really what this case hinges on. So what’s he doing? abbie vansickle We, again, can’t get inside Justice Alito’s head. But in the lead up to these arguments, there had been sort of speculation about whether the idea of fetal personhood would make an appearance. It’s not the focus of the legal arguments here. But if you look back to the Dobbs case, that case also was not a fetal personhood case, but that language made its way into his opinion. He wrote the majority opinion for the court. And so I think it’ll be interesting once a decision comes out, whichever way it goes with this court, whether the language of fetal personhood makes its way into the court’s decision in some way. And that is important, because it’s the Supreme Court. And the language that they use then gets cited by courts and judges all over the country. And right now, fetal personhood is not the accepted mainstream in the legal world. But language like that from the Supreme Court, it could be cited in cases around the country. sabrina tavernise Interesting. So even though the case isn’t actually about that, Alito can just kind of sprinkle it through, and it could be cited later as evidence that the Supreme Court is actually elevating this and talking about this. abbie vansickle Yeah, that’s a possibility. And it’s definitely something people will be watching out for when the court makes its decision in the case later this year. archived recording Thank you, counsel. The case is submitted. sabrina tavernise So, Abbie, do you have a sense after this very interesting set of arguments here, how the justices will rule? abbie vansickle You know, we’re in a bit of uncharted waters here. It’s hard to say how the court is going to come out in this case. I think Justice Barrett jumping in to say that she was shocked by some of the arguments being made by Idaho raised some questions about whether she could potentially align herself with the other women justices who are all liberals. But a majority of the conservative justices did seem to be sympathetic to Idaho’s arguments. It could be a case that comes down to Justice Barrett and the Chief Justice, who was actually pretty quiet during arguments. And, you know, I wouldn’t say that it was clear how he was going to come down on this. And I think that’s something that’s important about this case is that it’s likely to give us a substantive, real window into how the justices now post-Dobbs are thinking about abortion and how it’s playing out in all these different ways in states throughout the country. sabrina tavernise Abbie, I guess I’m thinking, whatever the outcome is, there’s something else that’s happening here. And I’m thinking here about the timing, right. The ruling will come just as the presidential campaign really heats up in the end of June. And we know that very strict abortion bans don’t play very well to the mainstream American voters. So if this ruling does go for Idaho, it would draw lines around abortion access that are even more restrictive than many states have at such a political moment. abbie vansickle I think it’s certainly fair to say that this decision will be closely watched, and that it also could draw the court into the politics of abortion. And one of the things that I just can’t help but think is that when the court made its decision in Dobbs to overturn Roe v. Wade, that Justice Alito made a point of saying that the court was getting out of the business of abortion, that this was something that would be left to the states. And now the court, as we’ve seen in this case, is wrestling with very sort of granule hypotheticals about the different emergencies that could come up and when is this OK and when is this not OK. And they are still very much in the weeds of abortion. sabrina tavernise So, so much for the Supreme Court being done with abortion cases. It’s right back there smack dab in the middle of one of the most contentious issues in American life. abbie vansickle That’s right. It certainly is. And so it’s hard not to think about the court’s putting itself again in the middle of this fierce debate, in the middle of a huge political fight. [MUSIC PLAYING] sabrina tavernise Abbie, thank you. abbie vansickle Thanks so much for having me. [MUSIC PLAYING] sabrina tavernise We’ll be right back. [MUSIC PLAYING] Here’s what else you need to know today. archived recording We can see different cohorts of NYPD officers. One is going across Butler Lawns towards Hamilton Hall. The other one is — sabrina tavernise On Tuesday, tensions over pro-Palestinian protests continued to escalate on university campuses across the country. At Columbia University in New York, hundreds of police officers in riot gear began arresting demonstrators on Tuesday night, about 20 hours after protesters had occupied a campus building. archived recording They’re entering the encampment now. I mean, I know we’ve reported on this before. There’s about a crowd of, I’d say, 30 or 40 police officers with batons and zip ties right outside the Gaza solidarity encampment right now. sabrina tavernise The Columbia University student radio station reported that police used tear gas to disperse people, and that at least one person was lying on the ground unconscious during the raid. Earlier in the day, the University closed the campus to everybody but students who live there and said it would move to expel students who had occupied the building. In Oregon, Portland State University closed its campus after students there broke into its library. Police officers made scores of new arrests at universities in California, Georgia, North Carolina, and Virginia. More than 1,000 protesters have been taken into custody on UC campuses since the original roundup at Columbia on April 18. Today’s episode was produced by Stella Tan, Alex Stern, and Jessica Cheung. It was edited by MJ Davis Lin, contains original music by Marion Lozano, and was engineered by Chris Wood. Our theme music is by Jim Brunberg and Ben Landsverk of Wonderly. [MUSIC PLAYING] That’s it for “The Daily.” I’m Sabrina Tavernise. See you tomorrow. The DailySubscribe: * Apple Podcasts * Google Podcasts May 1, 2024 THE NEW ABORTION FIGHT BEFORE THE SUPREME COURT THE BIDEN ADMINISTRATION IS ARGUING THAT IDAHO’S NEAR-TOTAL ABORTION BAN VIOLATES A FEDERAL LAW ON EMERGENCY TREATMENT. Transcript transcript Back to The Daily bars 0:00/35:16 -0:00 transcript THE NEW ABORTION FIGHT BEFORE THE SUPREME COURT THE BIDEN ADMINISTRATION IS ARGUING THAT IDAHO’S NEAR-TOTAL ABORTION BAN VIOLATES A FEDERAL LAW ON EMERGENCY TREATMENT. 2024-05-01T06:00:05-04:00 This transcript was created using speech recognition software. While it has been reviewed by human transcribers, it may contain errors. Please review the episode audio before quoting from this transcript and email transcripts@nytimes.com with any questions. sabrina tavernise From “The New York Times,” I’m Sabrina Tavernise. And this is “The Daily.” [MUSIC PLAYING] As the presidential race moves into high gear, abortion is at the center of it. Republican-controlled states continue to impose new bans, including just this week in Florida. But in Washington, the Biden administration is fighting back, challenging one of those bands in a case that is now before the Supreme Court. Today, my colleagues, Pam Belluck and Abbie VanSickle explain. [MUSIC PLAYING] It’s Wednesday, May 1st. [MUSIC PLAYING] So, Pam, in the two years since Roe v. Wade was overturned, more than a dozen states have instituted pretty strict bans. But as all of these bans are happening at the state level, something is happening at the federal level. And that is the Biden administration is fighting back in a kind of unusual way. And that effort came to the Supreme Court last week. Tell me about it. pam belluck Yeah so the case that went before the Supreme Court last week is basically a fight between the state of Idaho and the Biden administration over whether Idaho’s abortion ban violates a federal law that’s been on the books for decades. And if it does, then does Idaho have to change its abortion ban? And this case really gets at a bigger question about whether there are still ways that the federal government can limit states’ ability to ban or restrict abortion. Dobbs eliminated the constitutional right to abortion, right. It said that there’s no guarantee anywhere in the country that people have a right to abortion access, and that states can make their own laws around abortion. But it didn’t completely eliminate any other way that federal government, laws, or regulations interact with abortion. sabrina tavernise Right. pam belluck So that left the Biden administration looking around to try to figure out what, if anything, the federal government could do to weigh in on abortion. And it turned out that there were really very few tools left to the federal government. But it does find this one federal law from 40 years ago. And the law really has nothing to do with abortion. It doesn’t mention abortion. It is all about emergency room medical care. But the Biden administration thinks that it has found a way to use this law to fight some of the strictest abortion bans that states like Idaho are putting into play. sabrina tavernise Interesting. So the Biden administration is kind of rummaging around in its back closet, right, looking for ways to protect abortion rights. There’s nothing really there. But it finds this kind of old dress, this law you’re talking about. Tell me about this law. pam belluck Right. So this is the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act. As an abbreviation, it’s referred to as EMTALA. And EMTALA was passed to try to fix a problem that was getting increasingly widespread in the country in the 1980s. And what was happening was a problem called patient dumping. What this meant was that mostly private hospitals, if a patient showed up to their emergency room and the patient didn’t have insurance or couldn’t otherwise pay, these private hospitals were closing their doors to these patients. And they were sending them to public hospitals, county hospitals. And there were these horrific examples of people who were showing up in emergency rooms at public hospitals, having been kicked out of the private hospital with stab wounds and gunshot wounds. I mean, there was one case in Texas where a man with third-degree burns stumbled into a county hospital with a catheter and an IV line that had been inserted by the private hospital that had kicked him out. sabrina tavernise My God. pam belluck And this was creating a lot of public alarm and getting a lot of attention. And some of the cases involved pregnant women in labor. And these private hospitals were turning them away before their babies could be born. And one example in Texas, this woman went to a private hospital. And when she told them that her husband had just lost his job, they pushed her legs together, started an IV line, and sent her over to this county hospital. And she was crowning, according to the doctor who was at the hospital. And the baby was just coming any minute. She delivered in the hallway of the hospital. sabrina tavernise So this is a serious public problem. pam belluck Yeah. And Congress is under pressure to take action to try to prevent this. And so in 1986, they enact EMTALA, this federal law, which really was landmark. It was really kind of groundbreaking. And basically, what this law does is it says, emergency rooms in hospitals that receive Medicare funding, which is almost all hospitals in the country, have to treat any patient that shows up with any emergency medical condition. It requires emergency rooms to stabilize the patient. They have to give at least a basic standard of treatment to make sure that their health doesn’t get worse, that their condition doesn’t deteriorate. And if they can’t do that, they don’t have the ability to do that, they have to transfer the patient to a hospital that can. And it crucially does not matter if they can’t pay for it or if they have no insurance. sabrina tavernise But where does abortion come into this? We’re obviously talking about this in the context of an abortion fight, right? I mean, from what you’re saying, it sounds like this law really had to do with women who were coming in trying to deliver babies, not women who were coming in, trying to have abortions to get rid of babies. pam belluck Exactly. I mean, abortion is not mentioned in EMTALA. And it was not really something that even came up in the passage of the law. The law was really addressing these horror stories of women in labor being turned away from hospital emergency rooms. But the law does include this two-word phrase that decades later becomes part of the abortion debate. And that phrase is “unborn child.” Now, at the time, that phrase shows up very much in this context that we’ve been talking about, of women who are about to deliver a baby. So abortion is not mentioned in this law at all. And it wasn’t even really in the background of — at the time when it was passed. After EMTALA is passed, it has been used over the last four decades to basically try to ensure that patients with all kinds of conditions don’t get turned away from emergency rooms. And it doesn’t come into the abortion debate until nearly four decades later when the Biden administration decides that it can use this law to try to at least open some cracks into these very rigid state abortion bans. sabrina tavernise So you brought us back to the beginning where we started this conversation, which is this current case, Idaho versus the Biden administration. So how did that fight actually break out? pam belluck Yeah. So after Roe v. Wade was overturned, a number of states, including Idaho, put into place near-total abortion bans. Idaho’s ban has very limited exceptions for abortion. And one of the only times abortion is allowed is to keep a pregnant woman from dying. But the Biden administration issues a memo. And it says, hey, hospitals, hey, states. We’re just reminding you the interpretation of EMTALA applies to women who come to emergency rooms and need emergency abortions. So what the Biden administration is saying is this federal law says, preventing death is not the only reason that emergency rooms have to treat people. They also have to prevent people’s health situation from getting worse, because there are many situations where a woman is bleeding severely, or she has a severe infection, but maybe she’s not about to die. And so there’s a pretty wide Gulf between situations where a pregnant woman might need an abortion to save her life and when she might need an abortion to protect her health. sabrina tavernise So the Biden administration is saying, look, this federal law requires that you protect not just the woman’s life, but also the woman’s health, which, of course, brings it into direct conflict with Idaho’s ban, right? pam belluck Exactly. And what the Biden administration is going after here is something much broader, something that goes beyond emergency room care. What they’re targeting here is the concept in Idaho’s ban that you can’t intervene except to save the life of the mother. And by pointing to EMTALA and saying this law requires you to intervene to protect a patient’s health, they want to force states with these strict bans to acknowledge and allow abortions in a number of these cases of pregnancy complications that happen. And by doing that, it really wants to also create a crack in the foundation of these abortion bans. sabrina tavernise Got it. So that’s the crack in the foundation that you’re talking about. It’s not just about this narrow demographic of women who would be in this situation, but it gives them legally, potentially, a path to do something bigger. pam belluck And the Biden administration actually decides to be very aggressive with this EMTALA law. And so very soon after Roe v. Wade is overturned, the Biden administration sues Idaho and says, your abortion ban is violating this federal law and your abortion ban cannot stand. sabrina tavernise And Pam, what does Idaho say in response? What’s its argument here? pam belluck So Idaho says it is not violating EMTALA. And it accuses the Biden administration of wanting to turn emergency rooms into abortion clinics and wanting to force Idaho doctors to provide abortions against Idaho’s law. And this is also where that phrase, “unborn child,” comes up. Idaho is picking up on that language in EMTALA. And it’s saying that because the federal law mentions unborn child, that that means you have two patients to consider when a pregnant woman goes to an emergency room. And if you’re doing an abortion, then you’re, in their view, killing one of those two patients. And that’s why they are outlawing the ability to do that. sabrina tavernise So in other words, this law from 1986 is really being used by both sides through the lens of 2024, both by the Biden administration, who is saying, it says that abortions need to be provided in emergency rooms, and by Idaho saying, no, not so fast, the unborn child has equal protection here because that’s in the law. pam belluck Right. So you have both sides using this 40-year-old law that really had nothing to do with abortion when it was passed, and they’re trying to cast it in a light that serves their side of the abortion debate. And so this case ends up in the Supreme Court. And it’s important to note that this fight isn’t just between Idaho and the Biden administration. There are about half a dozen states that have strict abortion bans like Idaho’s, including Texas, which has been embroiled in a lawsuit over EMTALA with the Biden administration also. So whatever the Supreme Court rules in this case is going to have implications across the country. And it’s going to help shape what states can do if they want to ban or restrict abortion. [MUSIC PLAYING] sabrina tavernise After the break, my colleague, Supreme Court Reporter Abbie VanSickle on the oral arguments. We’ll be right back. So, Abbie, our colleague, Pam Belluck, just walked us through how this very unusual Idaho abortion case got to the Supreme Court. You covered the oral arguments last week. How did they go? abbie vansickle So a lot of the oral argument really focused on a question about how far states can go when they are crafting their own abortion laws. And the backdrop of this is that there’s part of the Constitution that deals with this question of what happens when a state law and a federal law are in conflict. And it’s called preemption. And the general principle is that when a state and federal law collide, if they’re in conflict with each other, that the federal law wins. And so the argument in this case really focused in on whether the Idaho abortion law directly conflicted with the federal EMTALA law or not. archived recording We will hear argument this morning in case 23-726. abbie vansickle And the argument started out with the lawyer for Idaho, Joshua Turner. archived recording Mr. Turner. archived recording (joshua turner) Thank you, Mr. Chief Justice, and may it please the Court. When Congress amended the Medicare Act in 1986, it put EMTALA on a centuries-old foundation of state law. abbie vansickle And Turner says that he does not see a direct conflict between Idaho’s abortion law and the federal law. archived recording (joshua turner) Nothing in EMTALA requires doctors to ignore the scope of their license and offer medical treatments that violate state law. abbie vansickle He argues that, in Idaho, if a woman’s life is in danger, that there are exceptions that allow abortions and that there’s flexibility for doctors to use good faith judgment. And he’s saying that Idaho is satisfying the federal laws requirement to provide women with stabilizing care. archived recording (joshua turner) The court should reject the administration’s unlimited reading of EMTALA and reverse the district court’s judgment. I welcome the court’s questions. sabrina tavernise In other words, nothing to see here. Our ban gives exceptions if the woman’s life is at risk. And that is in full compliance with this federal law, this EMTALA that mandates care, right? So how do the justices respond to this argument Turner’s making? abbie vansickle So when the lawyer for Idaho started making that argument, a group of justices right away seemed skeptical. And those were the liberal justices. archived recording (sonia sotomayor) Counsel, the problem we’re having right now is that you’re sort of putting preemption on its head. abbie vansickle Justice Sonia Sotomayor jumped in pretty quickly to say, what do you mean that there’s not a conflict between Idaho’s abortion law and federal law? archived recording (sonia sotomayor) Idaho law says the doctor has to determine, not that there’s merely a serious medical condition, but that the person will die. That’s a huge difference, Counsel. abbie vansickle And to kind of bring this down to earth — archived recording (sonia sotomayor) Answer the following question, and these are hypotheticals that are true. abbie vansickle — Justice Sotomayor starts with these hypotheticals of cases. And she explains that they’re pulled from real life examples when delaying an abortion until a woman was close to death had permanent effects on the woman’s health. archived recording (sonia sotomayor) Imagine a patient who goes to ER with preprompt 14 weeks. abbie vansickle She gets one example where there’s a patient whose water broke at 14 weeks in the pregnancy. archived recording (sonia sotomayor) She was in and out of the hospital up to 27 weeks. The baby died. She had a hysterectomy, and she can no longer have children. abbie vansickle And she said that delaying an abortion caused this woman to lose her fertility. archived recording (sonia sotomayor) All right, you’re telling me the doctor there couldn’t have done the abortion earlier. abbie vansickle And Justice Sotomayor asks, would Idaho’s abortion ban allow abortions in this kind of situation when a woman’s health is gravely affected, even though she didn’t die? And Idaho’s lawyer responds that it’s up to the doctor. archived recording (joshua turner) Again, it goes back to whether a doctor can, in good faith, medical judgment — archived recording (sonia sotomayor) That’s a lot for the doctor to risk. abbie vansickle And that this is case by case. archived recording (joshua turner) The examples — archived recording (sonia sotomayor) That’s the problem — archived recording (amy coney barrett) I’m kind of shocked, actually, because I thought your own expert had said below that these kinds of cases were covered, and you’re now saying they’re not? abbie vansickle And as this exchange is going on, another justice jumps in, which is a bit of a surprise, because it’s Justice Amy Coney Barrett, who is one of the court’s conservatives. And she jumps in and says — archived recording (amy coney barrett) Well, you’re hedging. I mean, Justice Sotomayor is asking you, would this be covered or not? And it was my understanding that the legislature’s witnesses said that these would be covered. abbie vansickle Wait a second, in the record in the documents leading up to this case, she thought that Idaho was arguing that those kind of examples, the kind of example where a woman needs an abortion or she has to have a hysterectomy, these sort of really extreme loss of organs and loss of future fertility. She says, I thought all of that was covered. sabrina tavernise She’s essentially looking at these medical scenarios and saying, hold on a second, wait, there’s a question here about whether that would be legal and kind of scratching her head, which is interesting and unusual given that she’s a conservative who’s pretty skeptical usually of arguments in favor of abortion rights. abbie vansickle That’s right. And, of course, we can only observe what she said and try to figure it out. But she might have found herself more in an alliance with the liberal justices, which not only would be surprising, given her sort of positions and her past record on abortion, but also could potentially set up a gender split on the Supreme Court in an abortion case, which would be pretty stunning. sabrina tavernise OK. So interesting kind of gender divide forming here. What do the men on the conservative side of the court say? abbie vansickle So the men on the court, the conservative justices, they jumped in pretty quickly after that. And Justice Kavanaugh comes in. archived recording (brett kavanaugh) Just want to focus on the actual dispute as it exists now today. abbie vansickle And he’s kind of suggesting that the justices turn away from the hypotheticals and focus back on what it actually says in the legal documents that were filed by each side before the oral argument. archived recording (joshua turner) You have said, in your brief at least, that each of the conditions identified by the government, actually, Idaho law allows an emergency abortion. abbie vansickle And Justice Kavanaugh says that the federal government, in their briefs, listed all these specific conditions where a woman should be provided access to an abortion under the federal EMTALA law. And based on Idaho’s own legal filings, he says, the state says it would allow exceptions for abortions. In these same types of situations. archived recording (joshua turner) You’re the one who said it in your reply brief that there’s actually no real daylight here in terms of the conditions. So I’m just picking up on what you all said. sabrina tavernise So in other words, the conservative justices are really kind of responding in the way that we would expect them to. They’re sympathetic to Idaho’s argument. They’re saying that law is flexible enough to comply with EMTALA. abbie vansickle That’s right. Thank you, counsel. And so that sort wrapped up the first part of the argument. And the next person up to the podium was the lawyer arguing for the federal government. archived recording General Prelogar. archived recording (elizabeth prelogar) Mr. Chief Justice, and may it please the court. sabrina tavernise So what did the federal government Solicitor General argue? What was her case? abbie vansickle So Elizabeth Prelogar, who — she’s actually from Idaho. sabrina tavernise Oh, right. Yes. abbie vansickle And she argues before the court all the time. And she started out by bringing the argument back to this idea that the liberal justices were really focused on before. archived recording (elizabeth prelogar) No one who comes to an emergency room in need of urgent treatment should be denied necessary stabilizing care — abbie vansickle Which is the federal government’s view that there is a profound gap between what EMTALA requires and what is in the Idaho abortion law. archived recording (elizabeth prelogar) The situation on the ground in Idaho is showing the devastating consequences of that gap. abbie vansickle And she points to the real-life consequences of this. archived recording (elizabeth prelogar) One hospital system in Idaho says that right now, it’s having to transfer pregnant women in medical crisis out of the state about once every other week. That’s untenable. And EMTALA does not countenance it. abbie vansickle And the Solicitor General is saying that this is gotten to the point where every other week Idaho hospitals are airlifting women to hospitals in other states to provide abortion care. sabrina tavernise Airlifted out of state. And is that true? abbie vansickle Yes. So there’s been local reporting in Idaho that since this abortion law has gone into effect, which has just been a number of months, that six women have been airlifted to other states. So Justice Kagan pushes on that. archived recording (elena kagan) It’s become transfer is the appropriate standard of care in Idaho, but it can’t be the right standard of care to force somebody onto a helicopter. abbie vansickle She says that it just doesn’t seem to make sense, that the right standard of care is to put a pregnant woman on a helicopter to another state. archived recording Justice Alito. abbie vansickle But one of the most interesting things that happens in the interaction with the Solicitor General is actually that Justice Alito jumps in. And he sort of takes the conversation in a totally new direction. archived recording (samuel alito) We’ve now heard, let’s see, an hour and a half of argument on this case. And one potentially very important phrase in EMTALA has hardly been mentioned, and that is EMTALA’s reference to the woman’s, quote unquote, “unborn child.” Isn’t that an odd phrase to put in a statute that imposes a mandate to perform abortions? Have you ever seen an abortion statute that uses the phrase unborn child? abbie vansickle And he says, isn’t it strange that this federal law that you are arguing to require abortions includes language that would typically be used by people who are against abortion? archived recording (samuel alito) And it seems that the plain meaning is that the hospital must try to eliminate any immediate threat to the child. But performing an abortion is antithetical to that duty. archived recording (elizabeth prelogar) It’s not an odd phrase when you look at what Congress was doing in 1989. abbie vansickle And the Solicitor General responds by saying, let’s look at back to what this law actually meant and what it was designed to address in the 1980s. And she explains how when this law went into effect, not only would a woman potentially be dumped from one emergency room if she couldn’t pay, but that if a woman came in and the medical problem was actually with the fetus, that she also might be dumped. archived recording (elizabeth prelogar) Congress wanted to expand the protection for pregnant women so that they could get the same duties to screen and stabilize when they have a condition that’s threatening the health and well-being of the unborn child. abbie vansickle And she says that’s actually why the language is there, that it’s not anti-abortion code. sabrina tavernise So what’s Alito really up to here? I mean, clearly, this idea of unborn child, it’s very important in the anti-abortion movement. It’s essentially linked to this idea of personhood, and that the fetus is actually a person that should be protected. But that’s not really what this case hinges on. So what’s he doing? abbie vansickle We, again, can’t get inside Justice Alito’s head. But in the lead up to these arguments, there had been sort of speculation about whether the idea of fetal personhood would make an appearance. It’s not the focus of the legal arguments here. But if you look back to the Dobbs case, that case also was not a fetal personhood case, but that language made its way into his opinion. He wrote the majority opinion for the court. And so I think it’ll be interesting once a decision comes out, whichever way it goes with this court, whether the language of fetal personhood makes its way into the court’s decision in some way. And that is important, because it’s the Supreme Court. And the language that they use then gets cited by courts and judges all over the country. And right now, fetal personhood is not the accepted mainstream in the legal world. But language like that from the Supreme Court, it could be cited in cases around the country. sabrina tavernise Interesting. So even though the case isn’t actually about that, Alito can just kind of sprinkle it through, and it could be cited later as evidence that the Supreme Court is actually elevating this and talking about this. abbie vansickle Yeah, that’s a possibility. And it’s definitely something people will be watching out for when the court makes its decision in the case later this year. archived recording Thank you, counsel. The case is submitted. sabrina tavernise So, Abbie, do you have a sense after this very interesting set of arguments here, how the justices will rule? abbie vansickle You know, we’re in a bit of uncharted waters here. It’s hard to say how the court is going to come out in this case. I think Justice Barrett jumping in to say that she was shocked by some of the arguments being made by Idaho raised some questions about whether she could potentially align herself with the other women justices who are all liberals. But a majority of the conservative justices did seem to be sympathetic to Idaho’s arguments. It could be a case that comes down to Justice Barrett and the Chief Justice, who was actually pretty quiet during arguments. And, you know, I wouldn’t say that it was clear how he was going to come down on this. And I think that’s something that’s important about this case is that it’s likely to give us a substantive, real window into how the justices now post-Dobbs are thinking about abortion and how it’s playing out in all these different ways in states throughout the country. sabrina tavernise Abbie, I guess I’m thinking, whatever the outcome is, there’s something else that’s happening here. And I’m thinking here about the timing, right. The ruling will come just as the presidential campaign really heats up in the end of June. And we know that very strict abortion bans don’t play very well to the mainstream American voters. So if this ruling does go for Idaho, it would draw lines around abortion access that are even more restrictive than many states have at such a political moment. abbie vansickle I think it’s certainly fair to say that this decision will be closely watched, and that it also could draw the court into the politics of abortion. And one of the things that I just can’t help but think is that when the court made its decision in Dobbs to overturn Roe v. Wade, that Justice Alito made a point of saying that the court was getting out of the business of abortion, that this was something that would be left to the states. And now the court, as we’ve seen in this case, is wrestling with very sort of granule hypotheticals about the different emergencies that could come up and when is this OK and when is this not OK. And they are still very much in the weeds of abortion. sabrina tavernise So, so much for the Supreme Court being done with abortion cases. It’s right back there smack dab in the middle of one of the most contentious issues in American life. abbie vansickle That’s right. It certainly is. And so it’s hard not to think about the court’s putting itself again in the middle of this fierce debate, in the middle of a huge political fight. [MUSIC PLAYING] sabrina tavernise Abbie, thank you. abbie vansickle Thanks so much for having me. [MUSIC PLAYING] sabrina tavernise We’ll be right back. [MUSIC PLAYING] Here’s what else you need to know today. archived recording We can see different cohorts of NYPD officers. One is going across Butler Lawns towards Hamilton Hall. The other one is — sabrina tavernise On Tuesday, tensions over pro-Palestinian protests continued to escalate on university campuses across the country. At Columbia University in New York, hundreds of police officers in riot gear began arresting demonstrators on Tuesday night, about 20 hours after protesters had occupied a campus building. archived recording They’re entering the encampment now. I mean, I know we’ve reported on this before. There’s about a crowd of, I’d say, 30 or 40 police officers with batons and zip ties right outside the Gaza solidarity encampment right now. sabrina tavernise The Columbia University student radio station reported that police used tear gas to disperse people, and that at least one person was lying on the ground unconscious during the raid. Earlier in the day, the University closed the campus to everybody but students who live there and said it would move to expel students who had occupied the building. In Oregon, Portland State University closed its campus after students there broke into its library. Police officers made scores of new arrests at universities in California, Georgia, North Carolina, and Virginia. More than 1,000 protesters have been taken into custody on UC campuses since the original roundup at Columbia on April 18. Today’s episode was produced by Stella Tan, Alex Stern, and Jessica Cheung. It was edited by MJ Davis Lin, contains original music by Marion Lozano, and was engineered by Chris Wood. Our theme music is by Jim Brunberg and Ben Landsverk of Wonderly. [MUSIC PLAYING] That’s it for “The Daily.” I’m Sabrina Tavernise. See you tomorrow. Listen 35:16 Previous More episodes ofThe Daily May 3, 2024 • 25:33The Protesters and the President May 2, 2024 • 29:13Biden Loosens Up on Weed May 1, 2024 • 35:16The New Abortion Fight Before the Supreme Court April 30, 2024 • 27:40The Secret Push That Could Ban TikTok April 29, 2024 • 47:53Trump 2.0: What a Second Trump Presidency Would Bring April 26, 2024 • 21:50Harvey Weinstein Conviction Thrown Out April 25, 2024 • 40:33The Crackdown on Student Protesters April 24, 2024 • 32:18Is $60 Billion Enough to Save Ukraine? April 23, 2024 • 30:30A Salacious Conspiracy or Just 34 Pieces of Paper? April 22, 2024 • 24:30The Evolving Danger of the New Bird Flu April 19, 2024 • 30:42The Supreme Court Takes Up Homelessness April 18, 2024 • 30:07The Opening Days of Trump’s First Criminal Trial See All Episodes ofThe Daily Next May 1, 2024 * Share full article * * * 19 * Read in app Hosted by Sabrina Tavernise Featuring Pam Belluck and Abbie VanSickle Produced by Stella Tan, Alex Stern and Jessica Cheung Edited by M.J. Davis Lin Original music by Dan Powell, Marion Lozano and Elisheba Ittoop Engineered by Chris Wood LISTEN AND FOLLOW THE DAILY APPLE PODCASTS | SPOTIFY | AMAZON MUSIC Never miss an episode of The Daily We'll send you the latest episode as soon as it publishes. Get it sent to your inbox. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- As the presidential race moves into high gear, abortion is at the center of it. Republican-controlled states continue to impose new bans, including just this week in Florida. But in Washington, the Biden administration is challenging one of those bans in a case that is now before the Supreme Court, arguing that Idaho’s strict rules violate a federal law on emergency medical treatment. Pam Belluck, a health and science reporter at The Times, and Abbie VanSickle, who covers the Supreme Court, explain how the federal law, known as EMTALA, relates to abortion, and how the case could reverberate beyond Idaho. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ON TODAY’S EPISODE Pam Belluck, a health and science reporter for The New York Times. Abbie VanSickle, who covers the Supreme Court for The New York Times. Image Protesters outside the U.S. Supreme Court. The court’s ruling could extend to at least half a dozen other states that have similarly restrictive bans, and the implications of the case could stretch beyond abortion.Credit...Saul Loeb/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images BACKGROUND READING * Here’s a guide to the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act, the federal law at the heart of the case. * And here are five takeaways from the Supreme Court arguments on Idaho’s abortion ban. There are a lot of ways to listen to The Daily. Here’s how. We aim to make transcripts available the next workday after an episode’s publication. You can find them at the top of the page. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The Daily is made by Rachel Quester, Lynsea Garrison, Clare Toeniskoetter, Paige Cowett, Michael Simon Johnson, Brad Fisher, Chris Wood, Jessica Cheung, Stella Tan, Alexandra Leigh Young, Lisa Chow, Eric Krupke, Marc Georges, Luke Vander Ploeg, M.J. Davis Lin, Dan Powell, Sydney Harper, Mike Benoist, Liz O. Baylen, Asthaa Chaturvedi, Rachelle Bonja, Diana Nguyen, Marion Lozano, Corey Schreppel, Rob Szypko, Elisheba Ittoop, Mooj Zadie, Patricia Willens, Rowan Niemisto, Jody Becker, Rikki Novetsky, John Ketchum, Nina Feldman, Will Reid, Carlos Prieto, Ben Calhoun, Susan Lee, Lexie Diao, Mary Wilson, Alex Stern, Dan Farrell, Sophia Lanman, Shannon Lin, Diane Wong, Devon Taylor, Alyssa Moxley, Summer Thomad, Olivia Natt, Daniel Ramirez and Brendan Klinkenberg. Our theme music is by Jim Brunberg and Ben Landsverk of Wonderly. Special thanks to Sam Dolnick, Paula Szuchman, Lisa Tobin, Larissa Anderson, Julia Simon, Sofia Milan, Mahima Chablani, Elizabeth Davis-Moorer, Jeffrey Miranda, Renan Borelli, Maddy Masiello, Isabella Anderson and Nina Lassam. Pam Belluck is a health and science reporter, covering a range of subjects, including reproductive health, long Covid, brain science, neurological disorders, mental health and genetics. More about Pam Belluck Abbie VanSickle covers the United States Supreme Court for The Times. She is a lawyer and has an extensive background in investigative reporting. More about Abbie VanSickle Read 19 Comments * Share full article * * * 19 * Read in app Advertisement SKIP ADVERTISEMENT COMMENTS 19 The New Abortion Fight Before the Supreme CourtSkip to Comments Share your thoughts. The Times needs your voice. We welcome your on-topic commentary, criticism and expertise. Comments are moderated for civility. Tell us about yourself. Take the survey. SITE INDEX SITE INFORMATION NAVIGATION * © 2024 The New York Times Company * NYTCo * Contact Us * Accessibility * Work with us * Advertise * T Brand Studio * Your Ad Choices * Privacy Policy * Terms of Service * Terms of Sale * Site Map * Canada * International * Help * Subscriptions