Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/23pdf/23-726_6jgm.pdf
Page Number: 40.0

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

17 

ALITO, J., dissenting 

the preliminary injunction will lead to more abortions, in-
cluding in at least some cases where the fetus is viable.  The 
State  of  Idaho  wants  to  prevent  that;  the  preliminary  in-
junction stands in its way.  Isn’t that enough to constitute
irreparable harm?

The Justices who have joined JUSTICE BARRETT’s concur-
rence  claim  that  the  parties’  briefs  and  oral  arguments
seem  to  have  narrowed  the  degree  to  which  EMTALA,  as 
interpreted  by  the  Government,  conflicts  with  the  Idaho 
law, ante, at 7–8, but all the parties continue to insist that
the  laws  conflict.  The  Solicitor  General  argued  that
EMTALA’s focus on a pregnant woman’s health is broader 
than Idaho’s life-of-the-mother exception.  In forceful terms, 
she  told  us:  “In  Idaho,  doctors  have  to  shut  their  eyes  to
everything except death,” whereas under EMTALA, a phy-
sician is supposed to think about serious threats to a preg-
nant woman’s health.  Tr. of Oral Arg. 102.  In light of this 
perceived conflict, the Solicitor General said it was “gravely
mistaken” to suggest that “there really isn’t in operation a
difference between” EMTALA and Idaho law.  Id., at 101– 
102. 

Idaho  agreed  that  the  Government’s  interpretation  of
EMTALA conflicts with state law.  In particular, the State
worried that “the United States’ novel theory” would “au-
thorize  emergency-room  doctors  to  perform  abortions”  for
mental-health  reasons  and  would  thus  “turn  emergency
rooms into federal abortion enclaves governed not by state
law but by subjective physician judgment.”  Brief for Peti-
tioner in No. 23–727, p. 30; see also Tr. of Oral Arg.  45–46. 
Thus,  whatever  narrowing  may  have  occurred  during
briefing and argument in this Court, both the Government
and the State of Idaho fervently maintain that it matters
whether the Idaho law is enforced.  Do any Justices in the
majority seriously disagree?  Do any of them think that the 
parties, not to mention their armies of amici, are fighting 
about nothing?