#RFKJr didn’t answer the question, saying he thinks he only has authority over the budgetary provisions of #EMTALA.

“I don’t know. I mean the answer that is, I don’t know,” Kennedy finally responded.

This has been a major debate in #health #policy, reaching #SCOTUS last year. (The court mostly punted on the case.) The Biden admin argued that federal #law preempts state law for emergency #abortions.

#HHS can influence whether #hospitals provide #abortion in emergency situations. The Biden admin issued guidance saying that #EMTALA’s requirements that hospitals provide emergency medical care also mean hospitals should provide abortion in cases where a woman’s health or life were at risk. Sen Cortez Masto asked #RFKJr if he believes that EMTALA protects a woman’s right to have an emergency abortion if her #health is threatened, in the case of an incomplete miscarriage, for example.
#law #USpol

#RFKJr is clearly flustered by this exchange. His go-to response when challenged about his about-face seems to be simply that he agrees w/ #Trump that “every abortion is a tragedy”

Sen Catherine Cortez-Masto, (D), trips RFKJr up on a question about #EMTALA, the federal #law that requires hospitals that receive #Medicare funding to provide emergency care to anyone in a life-threatening crisis—including #abortions for pregnant women. RFKJr confesses he does not know what authority he would have.

#Abortion rights groups & #medical experts called the #Idaho decision a preliminary victory that did not settle the broader question of whether a federal emergency-care #law preempts strict state #AbortionBans.

In both Idaho & #Texas, the #Biden admin asserted that federal law #EMTALA mandates emergency abortion care when it is the only treatment that can save a pregnant woman’s life or prevent serious harm to her health, including…organ failure or loss of fertility.

“So, as of today, the Court has not adopted #Idaho's farfetched theories-but it has not rejected them either.
“Instead, the Court puts off the decision. But how long must pregnant patients wait…? Until we confront the pending petition…the Govt filed w/us after the #FifthCircuit enabled Texas's flouting of #EMTALA? Until these very cases return to us in a few yrs? Will this Court…have a do-over, rehearing & rehashing the same arguments…,just at a comparatively more convenient point in time?

5/

“Despite clarity of the #legal issue & the dire need for an answer…,today 6 Justices refuse to recognize the rights #EMTALA protects.…The majority opts, instead, to dismiss these cases. But storm clouds loom….3 Justices suggest…that #States have free rein to nullify #FederalLaw.…& 3 more decline to disagree w/those dissenters on the #merits.…The latter group offers only…that 'petitioners have raised a difficult & consequential argument' about Congress's authority under the Spending Clause.…

4/

Here is a copy of the *accidentally* posted #SCOTUS ruling on #MoyleVUnitedStates - the case on whether an #Idaho #abortion #law conflicts w/ the federal Emergency Medical Treatment & Active Labor Act (#EMTALA)

https://assets.bwbx.io/documents/users/iqjWHBFdfxIU/rJo5436tVr08/v0

Justice #KetanjiBrownJackson’s opinion, concurring in part & dissenting in part, begins on p8.

US Sol Gen #Prelogar, who argued on behalf of the #Biden admin: "the situation on the ground in #Idaho is showing the devastating consequences" of the conflict between #EMTALA & Idaho's #AbortionBan.

"One #hospital system in Idaho says that right now it's having to transfer #pregnant #women in #medical #crisis out of the state about once every other week. That's untenable & EMTALA does not countenance it."

The *justices* heard arguments in an appeal by #Idaho ofcls of a lower court's ruling that found that the 1986 US law at issue, the #EmergencyMedicalTreatment & Labor Act (#EMTALA), supersedes the state's near-total #ban in the relatively rare circumstances when the 2 conflict.

President Joe #Biden's admin, which sued Idaho over the #abortion #law, has urged the justices to uphold that ruling.

#SCOTUS *justices*, wading back into the
battle over #abortion #access, appeared divided Wed in a case pitting #Idaho's strict #Republican-backed #AbortionBan against a #federal #law that ensures that patients can receive #EmergencyCare.

#EmergencyMedicalTreatment #EMTALA #AbortionIsHealthcare #ReproductiveRights #AbortionRights #healthcare #MaleSupremacy
https://www.reuters.com/world/us/us-supreme-court-weighs-idahos-strict-abortion-ban-medical-emergencies-2024-04-24/

#RAGA had an arm called the "Rule of Law Defense Fund,"
deployed
to do #robocalls, to
urge people to go to the Jan. 6 events that Trump said would be wild, to go there on the day that Congress was supposed to be certifying the election, as he was mounting this intimidation campaign against [Vice President Mike] Pence, unleashing his followers to assail him.

And this is in the context of weeks of efforts by Trump and his lawyers and advisers --- trying to help him execute a coup.

You had the #state #attorneys #general actively involved in some of this litigation to try ️to stop other states from certifying the election. ️

The group itself through this "Rule of Law Defense Fund" was actively involved in peddling the big lucrative lie about the election to push people to go to the mall on Jan. 6.

There was sort of shock and horror that a group of state attorneys general would be involved in trying to aid the precursor events to the violent insurrection at the Capitol.

And big companies said they weren’t going to fund RAGA.

And so for a moment there, there was a bright light shining on RAGA and on the events around the capital and these AGs.

But then months later, some of those companies came back to fund RAGA.

The #accountability light was ON and then OFF for the companies that were funding RAGA in 2020.

In addition to #Leonard #Leo’s network, #Koch Industries, #Comcast, #Walmart, #Home Depot, #Amazon, #TikTok, 1-800-CONTACTS, #Chevron, the #NRA, #Monsanto, #Facebook, Fox, #Uber, #Coca-#Cola, #Exxon, and #Google were some of the main funders of it.

Of course it didn’t last.

Leonard Leo continues to be the biggest subsidizer of RAGA through the money that is coming through his network,

but it’s also the case that they’re facing no consequences,
basically allowing them to just get away with it.

There’s been no consequence for them, and the Rule of Law Defense Fund still exists.

RAGA still exists, and many of these attorneys general have been actively involved in other efforts that make it
harder for Americans to vote, and they may well be involved this fall in
a repeat of 2020 in terms of their efforts to protect Trump at any cost.

Republican attorneys general decided to create their own attorney general association to pursue their own agenda and actually raise money from industries that they were supposed to regulate in order to fund this operation, which was designed to fuel their campaigns.

The history is deeply embedded in antipathy to public regulation, government regulation of industries that have literally killed thousands, if not millions, of Americans in the form of the tobacco industry, for example.