Attorney General Raúl Labrador has announced that the Trump Administration’s Department of Justice is dismissing any further action against Idaho’s Defense of Life Act, argued in case Idaho vs United States.
In a news release Labrador says “It has been the state’s position from the beginning that there is no conflict between the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act and Idaho’s Defense of Life Act.. “The goal of each is to save lives in every circumstance, both the mother and their unborn child. We are grateful that meddlesome DOJ litigation on this issue will no longer be an obstacle to Idaho enforcing its laws. He added that Idaho will continue defending life as intended by the legislature and our people.”
After the passage of Idaho’s Defense of Life Act, the Biden Administration’s Department of Justice sued Idaho, refusing to accept the Supreme Court’s 2023 decision in Dobbs which remanded abortion policy to the individual states. The Biden DOJ claimed that federal law under the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act, a 1986 federal statute designed to provide stabilizing treatment at emergency rooms regardless of a patient’s ability to pay, somehow instead mandated abortions, in contravention of Idaho’s Defense of Life Act.
The Idaho Supreme Court has ruled that Idaho’s Defense of Life Act permits an abortion based on the subjective, good-faith medical judgment of a doctor who believes the life of the mother is threatened. The Attorney General’s Office said neither a doctor’s certainty nor immanency of death is required for this judgment. Idaho has argued that Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act does not mandate a standard of care, nor requires abortion, but specifically states that emergency rooms are to treat both mothers and their unborn children.
