Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/23pdf/23-726_6jgm.pdf
Page Number: 47.0

24 

MOYLE v. UNITED STATES 

ALITO, J., dissenting 

Law  School  Professor  Mary  Ann  Glendon  put  it:  “[W]hen 
Roe is read with Doe, third-trimester restrictions are effec-
tively  ruled  out  as  well—for  Roe’s  dictum  that  such  re-
strictions might be permissible if they did not interfere with 
the  mother’s  health  was  negated  by  Doe’s  definition  of 
‘health’ as ‘well-being.’ ”  The Women of Roe v. Wade (2003). 
The  Solicitor  General  tried  to  explain  why  the  Govern-
ment’s  interpretation  would  not  lead  down  this  path,  but
her explanation is hard to understand.  She said that men-
tal-health emergencies “could never lead to pregnancy ter-
mination” because abortion “is not the accepted standard of 
practice to treat any mental health emergency.”  Tr. of Oral 
Arg. 77–78; accord, Brief for United States 26, n. 5. 

That assertion appears to be inconsistent with the posi-
tion taken by prominent medical associations that endorse
abortion for mental-health reasons as an accepted standard 
of practice.  See, e.g., American Psychiatric Association, Po-
sition  Statement  on  Abortion  and  Women’s  Reproductive
Healthcare Rights (Mar. 2023) (“Freedom to act to interrupt 
pregnancy  must  be  considered  a  mental  health  impera-
tive”);  American  Psychological  Association,  Resolution  Af-
firming and Building on APA’s History of Support for Re-
productive Rights (Feb. 2022). 

For these reasons, there is a real potential for conflict be-
tween the Idaho law and the Government’s interpretation
of EMTALA, and in my judgment, the Court seriously errs
by vacating the stay we issued earlier this year. 

—————— 
Wade, 82 Yale L. J. 920, 921, and n. 19 (1973); J. Dellapenna, Dispelling
the  Myths  of  Abortion  History  695  (2006)  (“Blackmun’s  definition  of  a 
woman’s  ‘health’  in  Doe  as  encompassing  anything  affecting  her  ‘well-
being’ virtually precluded any possible regulation of abortion during the
entire months of pregnancy”); R. Ponnuru, The Party of Death 10 (2006)
(“Roe required that any ban on late-term abortion include an exception 
allowing abortion to protect a woman’s health; Doe defined that excep-
tion so broadly that it swallowed up any possibility of a ban”).