Fearing Trump will drop Idaho emergency abortion lawsuit, St. Luke’s sues AG Labrador
Idaho’s largest health care provider is suing Attorney General Raúl Labrador over state abortion restrictions in a bid to preserve an injunction from a federal lawsuit that President-elect Donald Trump’s administration could abandon.
St. Luke’s Health System filed the lawsuit in Idaho’s U.S. District Court on Tuesday. In a statement, hospital officials said their goal is to determine whether Idaho’s near-total abortion ban takes precedent over the federal Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act, or EMTALA.
The U.S. Department of Justice sued Idaho shortly after its ban went into effect in 2022 and claimed the state law prevented health care providers from performing abortions necessary to stabilize patients in emergency situations. The case, which made its way to the U.S. Supreme Court last April, has been remanded to the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals.
St. Luke’s statement said it’s unclear whether the incoming Trump administration will drop the lawsuit. It’s the same question that was raised by a 9th Circuit Court panel last month during oral arguments. At the time, an attorney for St. Luke’s indicated to the judges that the hospital system might file its own lawsuit if the DOJ abandons the case.
Since the Justice Department filed the lawsuit, it has bounced from court to court, and an injunction put in place by Judge B. Lynn Winmill of the U.S. District Court for Idaho to allow abortions in medical emergencies has been lifted and reinstated more than once. St. Luke’s officials said they filed the new lawsuit along with a motion for injunctive relief to keep the current protections for emergency abortions in place in the event that Trump’s administration drops the issue.
“Without the injunction, patients, physicians and other licensed professionals will be harmed, as was the case in early 2024 when the injunction was removed for several months pending review by the U.S. Supreme Court,” the health system’s news release said.
In early 2024, St. Luke’s officials said they airlifted multiple pregnant patients out of the state for emergency care after the U.S. Supreme Court lifted the injunction for several months.
St. Luke’s spokesperson Christine Myron told the Idaho Statesman on Tuesday that the hospital system has not heard from the Justice Department or the Trump transition team on the lawsuit’s fate.
Labrador’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment. In December, spokesperson Dan Estes told the Statesman the AG’s office had not received word from Trump’s team on its plans.
Trump’s transition team did not respond to a request for comment.
The new lawsuit joins several others challenging Idaho abortion restrictions. Abortion is illegal in Idaho except under narrow exceptions, including when “necessary to prevent the death of the pregnant woman” — a phrase doctors have said is too vague to interpret, particularly when they face prison time and loss of their medical license for violating the law.
Critics have said the law doesn’t allow doctors to perform abortions when a patient’s health, but not their life, is at risk. Labrador and other proponents of the abortion restrictions maintain that the law is clear and have essentially accused St. Luke’s and medical professionals of lying about transfers and care.
In its lawsuit, the hospital system argued that Idaho’s abortion law “compromises the ability of St. Luke’s to provide medical care to its community and threatens severe public health consequences, including irreversible damage to the health of a pregnant patient in some instances, and in other cases could lead to death.”
St. Luke’s said in its statement that it will continue to advocate for legislators to add a health exception to the abortion restrictions, though Republican leaders said in a legislative preview that they don’t want to amend the law until the DOJ lawsuit is settled.
