Joe Biden says women ‘remain in peril’ after Supreme Court abortion ruling

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President Joe Biden has launched TV ads saying women’s lives are at risk in a post-Roe world, with remarks coming on the heels of a Supreme Court ruling on a controversial Idaho abortion law.

“Women’s health, lives, and freedoms remain in peril across the country because of Donald Trump,” Biden-Harris 2024 Campaign Manager Julie Chavez Rodriguez said in a statement.

“Because Trump’s Supreme Court majority overturned Roe v. Wade, women are being turned away from emergency rooms and forced to the brink of death before receiving the care they need. If Trump returns to the White House, he and his allies would ban abortion in all 50 states — without the help of Congress or the courts — putting even more women’s lives at risk.”

The Supreme Court decision Thursday does allow Idaho doctors to continue to perform emergency life-saving abortions when pregnant women are in the emergency room, at least for now, under the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act (EMTALA).

“The statute does not list particular treatments — for example, defibrillation, blood transfusion, or mechanical ventilation. What it instead requires is the treatment that is medically appropriate to stabilize the patient,” Justice Elena Kagan said in her concurring opinion.

“And when a pregnancy goes terribly wrong, that treatment may be an abortion. Termination of the pregnancy (which is often of a non-viable fetus) may be the only way to prevent a woman’s death or serious injury, including kidney failure or loss of fertility.”

But the court failed to weigh in on the core of the case. The 2022 lawsuit could get sent back to the conservative-controlled lower courts.

EMTALA allows doctors to provide care, including abortions, in emergency-living situations at hospitals funded by Medicare, meaning most hospitals. Idaho, meanwhile, has a ban on most abortions, although there are exceptions, including to save a woman’s life. The law criminalizes doctors who perform abortions.

Democrats are pushing abortion rights as an issue in an election year where many states — including Florida — have ballot initiatives this November.

In Florida, Amendment 4 would overturn the state’s six-week abortion ban to allow women to get abortions until viability, which is generally considered about 24 weeks. Some doctors who are speaking out with the Yes on 4 Campaign have said women whose unborn babies have fatal deficiencies need access to health care and abortions later in their pregnancies.