The justices must decide whether Idaho doctors can terminate a pregnancy to save a woman’s health or only if her life is at risk The supreme court heard its second abortion rights case of the term on Wednesday, this one focused on how states can regulate emergency abortions – exceedingly rare procedures that often save a woman’s life or her future fertility. The case may seem technical because it focuses on a small subset of emergency abortions and federal law that governs emergency room care ..read more

Republicans, who control state legislature, feeling political heat amid focus on imminent threat to reproductive rights Democrats in the Arizona legislature are attempting to repeal the state’s near-total ban on abortions for a third straight week, again spotlighting an issue that has put Republicans on the defensive in a battleground state for the presidential election. “Make no mistake: Arizonans are living in 1864 now because Donald Trump dismantled Roe v Wade,” the Democratic state senator Priya Sundareshan said at a press conference on Wednesday ..read more

Supreme court’s liberal minority shows doubt about Idaho’s argument but would need two conservative justices to vote against it in order to be effective Tracking where abortion laws stand across the US If the justices side with Idaho, Americans could be left with a federal emergency medicine law that is open to exempting disfavored people, conditions and treatments – for example emergencies involving people addicted to opioids, Aids-related emergencies or treatment for gender dysphoria. Idaho’s quest to exert total control over abortion could also, in the long term, establish legal theory th ..read more

‘Citizen’s initiative’ aims to put abortion rights in the state’s constitution and repeal a long-dormant outright ban As people streamed into the empanada restaurant, Susan Anthony made eye contact, pointing to her sign that asked whether they were pro-choice. “Have you signed yet?” she asked patrons at the establishment in Mesa, Arizona. She carried a clipboard with petition sheets for a citizen’s initiative, a ballot measure that would put the right to abortion access in the swing state’s constitution ..read more

Federal Emtala law has become focal point in heated debate over emergency abortions in states that ban procedure For the second time in a month, the US supreme court on Wednesday will hear arguments in a major abortion-rights case, the second to reach the justices since a 6-3 conservative majority overturned Roe v Wade two years ago. Wednesday’s case involves a 1986 federal law called the Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act, or Emtala, which requires hospitals that receive federal dollars to stabilize patients who show up at their emergency rooms with medical emergencies ..read more

As states ban abortions, a 1968 federal law requires hospitals that receive Medicaid dollars to stabilize patients in a medical emergency, creating a catch-22 for care providers Dr Lauren Miller used to cry every day on her way to work. A fetal maternal medicine specialist in Idaho, Miller despaired over the possibility she might be forced to tell patients she could not help them. Idaho has one of the strictest abortion bans in the nation, which means Miller could only perform abortions to save a woman’s life – and many patients, even those facing medical emergencies with potentially deadly co ..read more

Justices to rule whether abortion bans should undo Emtala, the Reagan-era law requiring hospitals to treat emergency patients One of the only universal rights to healthcare in the US is to be treated in the emergency room – a place where doctors are required to stabilize patients if their future health or life is in serious jeopardy. That right, guaranteed by the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act, known across the country by healthcare professionals as Emtala, was borne out of what was once a common practice called “patient dumping” – transferring patients who could not pay from privat ..read more

Cases listed in federal documents raise alarms around emergency pregnancy care, especially in states with strict abortion laws One woman miscarried in the restroom lobby of a Texas emergency room as front desk staff refused to admit her to the hospital. Another woman learned that her fetus had no heartbeat at a Florida hospital, the day after a security guard turned her away from the facility. And in North Carolina, a woman gave birth in a car after an emergency room couldn’t offer an ultrasound, and the baby later died ..read more

Democrat Debbie Mucarsel-Powell is challenging incumbent Rick Scott and highlighting his ‘unapologetic and proud’ support for the state’s six-week ban A round table on abortion rights, hosted by Florida’s Democratic Senate candidate Debbie Mucarsel-Powell, has only just begun, and already she finds herself comforting a woman in tears with a very personal story to tell. The woman is from Colombia, and speaks softly in Spanish as she tells the intimate gathering of the Miami-Dade Hispanic Democratic Caucus about the distressing decision her daughter had to make to terminate a pregnancy after lea ..read more

Last week the Arizona supreme court upheld a law first passed in 1864, which, if it goes into effect, will ban almost all abortions in the state. Democrats were quick to denounce the ruling, but some prominent Republicans were not happy with it either, including Donald Trump. Since the overturning of Roe v Wade nearly two years ago, individual states have had the ability to restrict abortion rights and several have jumped at the chance. This week, Jonathan Freedland and Moira Donegan of Guardian US discuss why Republicans are divided on restrictions they worked so hard to put in place. Why are ..read more