Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/23pdf/23-726_6jgm.pdf
Page Number: 7

6 

MOYLE v. UNITED STATES 

KAGAN, J., concurring 

in an amendment to EMTALA, ensures that a woman with 
no  health  risks  of  her  own  can  demand  emergency-room 
treatment if her fetus is in peril.  It does not displace the 
hospital’s duty to a woman whose life or health is in jeop-
ardy, and who needs an abortion to stabilize her condition. 
Then,  the  statute  requires  offering  that  treatment  to  the 
woman.* 

Because the Idaho law conflicts with that requirement—
prevents hospitals from doing what EMTALA commands—
the Court is right to dissolve its stay of the District Court’s
injunction.  Doing so will again give Idaho women access to
all the needed medical treatments that EMTALA guaran-
tees. 

—————— 

*The amendment’s history confirms that understanding.  As originally
enacted,  EMTALA  did  not  obligate  hospitals  to  provide  medical  care 
when a woman’s fetus, but not the woman herself, was in peril.  See Tr. 
of  Oral  Arg.  105  (Solicitor  General  describing  “well-publicized  cases” 
where women’s  “own  health  and  life  were  not  in  danger,  but  the  fetus 
was in grave distress and hospitals weren’t treating them”).  To fix that 
problem, very large bipartisan majorities in both the House and the Sen-
ate elected to broaden the provision, entitling a woman to demand care 
for her unborn child as well as herself.  See 103 Stat. 2248; 135 Cong. 
Rec. 31431 (1989); id., at 31127; id., at 24605; id., at 23393.  The amend-
ment would likely have sparked far more opposition if it somehow tacitly
withdrew EMTALA’s requirement that hospitals treat women who need
an abortion to prevent death or serious harm.