The Biden administration has filed its first legal challenge to a state abortion ban since the end of Roe v. Wade, arguing Idaho’s restrictive abortion law leaves doctors facing criminal penalties for providing abortion-related medical care to women in life-threatening medical situations.
The Justice Department may have a strong argument in the Idaho case filed under federal health care law, but even if they win it wouldn’t allow full access to abortion there, legal experts said. It could, though, give doctors more latitude to provide an abortion in an emergency or a situation that could become one.
