U.S. Supreme Court to allow emergency abortions in Idaho: report

US Supreme Court ruling allows abortions for medical emergencies in Idaho, impacting reproductive rights and presidential election.

The US Supreme Court is set to allow abortions for women experiencing medical emergencies in Idaho, according to a copy of a verdict briefly posted on its website and seen by Bloomberg News on Wednesday.

The court's apparent decision comes two years after the conservative-majority bench overturned the nationwide right to terminate a pregnancy, making reproductive rights a pivotal issue that could affect the outcome of the November presidential election.

The ruling -- which Bloomberg posted in full, but is not necessarily the final version -- would reinstate a lower court's injunction that ensured hospitals could terminate pregnancies to protect a mother's health, dismissing appeals by the northwestern state's leaders.

The court ruled 6-3 in favor of lifting a stay it placed in January on an order issued by a federal judge in Boise, while it took up the case. Conservative Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito and Neil Gorsuch dissented.

But the new ruling, which was mistakenly uploaded, according to court officials cited by Bloomberg, does not tackle the central issue raised by the case -- namely, whether Idaho's near-total ban on abortion conflicts with a federal law requiring hospitals to stabilize patients needing emergency care.

A decision on the merits could have potentially sweeping national consequences.

Rather, the Supreme Court said the appeals are being dismissed as "improvidently granted," and the case should rather run its course in lower courts.