Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/23pdf/23-726_6jgm.pdf
Page Number: 12.0

Cite as:  603 U. S. ____ (2024) 

5 

BARRETT, J., concurring 

need for “immediate determination in this Court,” Supreme
Court Rule 11. 

At  the  merits  stage,  however,  the  United  States  dis-
claimed  these  interpretations  of  EMTALA.    First,  it  em-
phatically disavowed the notion that an abortion is ever re-
for  mental  health 
quired  as  stabilizing  treatment 
conditions.  Brief for United States 26, n. 5; Tr. of Oral Arg. 
76–78.  That is an important concession: If restricted to con-
ditions  posing  serious  jeopardy  to  a  woman’s  physical
health, the Government’s reading of EMTALA does not gut 
Idaho’s Act.*  Second, the United States clarified that fed-
eral conscience protections, for both hospitals and individ-
ual physicians, apply in the EMTALA context.  Tr. of Oral 
Arg.  87–89.  That  is  another  critical  point:  It  alleviates 
Idaho’s  concern  that  the  Government’s  interpretation  of 
EMTALA  would  strip  healthcare  providers  of  conscience 
protections.

Narrowing  happened  from  the  other  direction  too.  The 
United States identified PPROM, placental abruption, pre-
eclampsia, and eclampsia as conditions for which EMTALA 
requires an emergency abortion to be available.  (The same
conditions that the Government’s witnesses identified—be-
fore  Idaho’s  law  changed.)    But  in  this  Court,  petitioners
represent that the Act permits physicians to treat each of
these  conditions  with  emergency  abortions,  even  if  the 
threat to the woman’s life is not imminent.  Reply Brief in
No. 23–726, pp. 21–22; Reply Brief in No. 23–727, pp. 8–9; 

—————— 

*The United States also clarified that if pregnancy seriously jeopard-
izes  the  woman’s  health  postviability,  EMTALA  requires  delivery,  not 
abortion.  Brief for United States 10; Tr. of Oral Arg. 75.  And it empha-
sized that EMTALA requires abortion only in an “emergency acute med-
ical situation,” where a woman’s health is in jeopardy if she does not re-
ceive an abortion “then and there.”  Tr. of Oral Arg. 79–80.  These two 
temporal  points  also  narrow  the  scope  of  EMTALA’s  potential  conflict
with Idaho’s Act.