Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/23pdf/23-726_6jgm.pdf
Page Number: 24

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

1 

ALITO, J., dissenting 

SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES 

_________________ 

Nos. 23–726 and 23–727 
_________________ 

MIKE MOYLE, SPEAKER OF THE IDAHO HOUSE OF 
REPRESENTATIVES, ET AL., PETITIONERS 
v. 
UNITED STATES 

23–726 

23–727 

IDAHO, PETITIONER 
v. 
UNITED STATES 

ON WRITS OF CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF 
APPEALS FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT 

[June 27, 2024] 

JUSTICE A LITO,  with  whom  JUSTICE THOMAS  joins,  and 
with whom JUSTICE GORSUCH joins as to Parts I and II, dis-
senting. 

This case presents an important and unsettled question 
of  federal  statutory  law:  whether  the  Emergency  Medical 
Treatment and Labor Act (EMTALA), 42 U. S. C. §1395dd, 
sometimes demands that hospitals perform abortions and 
thereby preempts Idaho’s recently adopted Defense of Life 
Act,  Idaho  Code  Ann.  §18–622  (Supp.  2023).    Enacted 
nearly  40  years  ago,  EMTALA  requires  hospitals  partici-
pating  in  Medicare  to  “scree[n]”  and  “stabilize”  “any  indi-
vidual”  who  comes  to  an  emergency  room  with  an  “emer-
gency  medical  condition”  that  jeopardizes  the  patient’s 
“health.” §§1395dd(a),  (b)(1)(A),  (e)(1)(A). And  if  the  pa-
tient is a pregnant woman, the hospital must stabilize both 
“the woman” and “her unborn child.”  §1395dd(e)(1)(A)(i).

After this Court’s decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s 
Health Organization, 597 U. S. 215 (2022), Idaho and other