The Supreme Court accidentally released its ruling — or a draft of its ruling — on Idaho’s abortion ban on Wednesday, at least a day earlier than it intended to share its decision, according to Bloomberg News.
The outlet reported that a document appearing to be the court’s opinion in Moyle v. United States and Idaho v. United States briefly appeared on the Supreme Court website before being taken down.
A spokesperson for the court confirmed to Bloomberg News that a document had been “inadvertently” uploaded Wednesday morning, but would not confirm what the document contained.
“The Court’s opinion in Moyle v. United States and Idaho v. United States will be issued in due course,” said Patricia McCabe, the court’s public information officer, to Bloomberg News.
Leaked abortion ruling
Wednesday’s surprising development comes two years after a draft of the Supreme Court’s ruling in another abortion case was leaked to Politico more than a month before it was formally released.
The leaked document had much in common with the final ruling, which overturned Roe v. Wade and returned control over abortion policy back to the states, as the Deseret News reported at the time.
The cases involved in this year’s controversy are directly tied to that 2022 ruling, since the earlier decision made it possible for Idaho to put its current abortion restrictions in place.
In this term’s battle, the Biden administration is arguing that a federal law regarding emergency medical treatment for pregnant women should overrule state-level abortion bans.
In other words, federal officials believe hospitals should be obligated to provide abortions in emergency situations, even when state law strictly limits access to the procedure.
Bloomberg News is reporting that the document mistakenly uploaded to the Supreme Court’s website would hand a temporary win to the Biden administration.
The 6-3 decision reportedly lifts the current stay on a federal court order, restoring a lower court ruling protecting access to emergency abortion care in Idaho.
Pregnant women in Idaho would be able to receive emergency abortions as the cases work their way through the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals and then, potentially, through the Supreme Court again.
“The court as a whole doesn’t explain its decision in the posted version, saying that the appeals are being dismissed as ‘improvidently granted.’ That would mean the court won’t resolve broader questions about the intersection of state abortion bans and a federal law designed to ensure hospitals can treat patients who arrive in need of emergency care,” per Bloomberg News.
Supreme Court decisions so far
If the Supreme Court’s final opinion in the Idaho abortion case looks like the document that was uploaded Wednesday, it would build on a trend that’s emerging this term.
At least twice so far this month, the justices have side-stepped ruling on the merits of a tricky case and instead based their ruling on a more surface-level concern.
- On June 13, in a case over access to the abortion pill mifepristone, the court said the religious doctors who had challenged the FDA’s guidelines for the pill did not actually have standing. It was a unanimous decision.
- On Wednesday, the court again focused on standing in a 6-3 ruling against the two states and five individual social media users who challenged government interference with online content moderation policies.
The Supreme Court will release opinions in remaining cases Thursday and Friday. It’s not yet clear if there will be additional decision days in July.