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2 

MOYLE v. UNITED STATES 

Opinion of JACKSON, J. 

could actually say that the abortion was necessary to pre-
vent a patient’s death, that doctor could no longer provide 
abortion  care  that  she  viewed  as  reasonably  necessary  to
keep a patient from losing her uterus, going into organ fail-
ure, or avoiding any number of other serious health risks.
Compare  §18–622(a)(i)  with  42  U. S. C.  §1395dd(e)(1)(A). 
As a practical matter, this Court’s intervention meant that
Idaho  physicians  were  forced  to  step  back  and  watch  as
their patients suffered, or arrange for their patients to be 
airlifted out of Idaho. 

This  months-long  catastrophe  was  completely  unneces-
sary.  More  to  the  point,  it  directly  violated  federal  law,
which in our system of government is supreme.  See Art. VI, 
cl.  2.    As  JUSTICE  KAGAN  explains,  EMTALA  plainly  re-
quires  doctors  to  provide  medically  necessary  stabilizing 
abortions in limited situations.  See ante, at 4–6 (concurring
opinion).  To  the  extent  that  Idaho  law  conflicts  with 
EMTALA, the State’s law must give way.  I join in JUSTICE 
KAGAN’s  statutory  analysis,  see  ibid.,  and  I  concur  in  the 
Court’s per curiam decision to lift its stay, which should not 
have been entered in the first place.  I dissent in part be-
cause, in my view, the Court is wrong to dismiss these cases 
as improvidently granted. 

I 

This  Court  typically  dismisses  cases  as  improvidently 
granted  based  on  “circumstances  . . .  which  ‘were  not  . . . 
fully apprehended at the time certiorari was granted.’ ”  The 
Monrosa  v.  Carbon  Black  Export,  Inc.,  359 U. S.  180,  183 
(1959) (some alterations in original).  This procedural mech-
anism should be reserved for that end—not  turned into a 
tool for the Court to use to avoid issues that it does not wish 
to decide. 

The reasons that justified our grant of certiorari in these 
cases still hold true today.  See this Court’s Rule 11.  The 
in 
importance  of  recognizing  Congress’s 

judgments