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CV NEWS FEED // This summer, the U.S. Supreme Court will consider two abortion lawsuits that could provide the Court with the opportunity to demonstrate a “judicial middle ground” between pro-life and pro-abortion stances, a Catholic commentator recently argued.
Catholic author and commentator Russell Shaw wrote for Angelus News on May 21 that the Supreme Court could attempt to remain in the middle by giving one case to the pro-abortion cause and one to the pro-lifers.
The two cases to be ruled on this summer are Moyle v. United States and Food and Drug Administration v. Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine.
The first is a battle between Idaho and the United States, which began last year after the Department of Health and Human Services reinterpreted the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act (EMTALA) to require all emergency rooms to provide abortions.
In the second case, pro-life physicians in the Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine sued the Food and Drug Administration for approving the abortion drug mifepristone on numerous occasions, removing restrictions on the drug with each approval.
The pro-life doctors argue that the drug’s approvals were “arbitrary and capricious” and failed to account for the number of risks posed to women taking it.
“If the Supreme Court does have it in mind to demonstrate some version of impartiality, the Mifepristone case offers a simple way to please the pro-abortion side — hold that the unnamed anti-Mifepristone doctors lack legal standing since they haven’t suffered substantial injury through the drug’s availability,” Shaw wrote, adding that the Court already seemed to lean that way during an oral argument heard in March.
Shaw added that the Idaho case presents an opportunity for the Court to uphold its decision in Dobbs v. Jackson in 2022, which allowed individual states to regulate abortions. Currently, Idaho only allows abortion when the mother’s life is at stake.
The Justice Department has argued that EMTALA, a federal act, overrides state law, but Idaho is fighting for its right to impose restrictions on obtaining abortions.
According to Shaw, the Supreme Court is expected to make decisions on both cases before its term ends in June.
