One of my lawyer friends has been predicting for months we would see Amy Coney Barrett gradually moving toward a partial alliance with the liberal justices on the court, and yesterday, we saw her back up Justice Sotomayor's argument in the Iowa abortion case before the court.
"The U.S. Supreme Court sounded divided yesterday during oral arguments in a case concerning access to emergency abortions. The justices were hearing arguments in two consolidated cases about whether a near total abortion ban in the state of Idaho conflicts with a federal law," Mika Brzezinski said.
"That federal law passed in 1986 requires emergency rooms to provide care to any patients with urgent medical issues, but Idaho's new abortion law only permits hospitals to perform abortions when a mother's life is in danger. For the most part, the Supreme Court justices seem to fall along ideological lines yesterday, but at one point, even conservative Justice Amy Coney Barrett discussed shock with what she was hearing from a lawyer representing the state of idaho."
SOTOMAYOR: When Idaho law changed to make the issue whether she's going to die or not or whether she's going to have a serious medical condition -- there's a big daylight by your standards, correct?
ATTORNEY: It is very case by case.
SOTOMAYOR: That's the problem.
BARRETT: I'm kind of shocked actually because I thought your own expert had said below that these kinds of cases were covered and you're now saying they're not?
ATTORNEY: Those doctors said if they were exercising their medical judgment, they could in good faith, determine that life-saving care was necessary, and that's my point as it's --
BARRETT: But some doctors couldn't? Some doctors could reach a contrary conclusion is what Justice Sotomayor is asking you?
ATTORNEY: I don't know of a condition that is so certain to result in the loss of an organ, but also so certain not to transpire with death. If that condition exists, yes. Idaho law does say that abortions in that case aren't allowed.
"Well, there you go," Brzezinski said. "Katty Kay -- and Arizona finally got rid of the ancient ban on abortion, but still. This is the problem with state after state making their own decisions, and women's lives are hanging in the balance, and it's a matter of life and death, care or not care, can getting kicked out of an ER, and not getting kicked out of an ER. This goes beyond, and I'll say it again, women standing in line nine months pregnant asking for abortion which doesn't happen, but of course, far-right Republicans want to paint that picture. What they're seeing in reality, in Florida, and in states like this is going to be very different, and it's going to impact all women."
