‘I’m kind of shocked’: Amy Coney Barrett backs up Sonia Sotomayor in abortion case
Conservative Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett appeared to briefly take the side of liberal Justice Sonia Sotomayor on abortion rights Wednesday.
The high court was hearing oral arguments on the conflict between Idaho's stringent abortion ban and a federal law that mandates emergency medical care standards in hospitals, including for pregnant women.
Sotomayor asked Idaho lawyer Joshua Turner about a woman who was brought to the emergency room at 14 weeks of pregnancy.
"This particular patient, they tried, had to deliver her baby," the justice said. "The baby died. She had a hysterectomy, and she can no longer have children. All right, you're telling me the doctor there couldn't have done the abortion earlier?"
"Again, it goes back to whether a doctor can, in good faith, medical judgment," Turner replied before he was interrupted.
"That's a lot for the doctor to risk," Sotomayor noted. "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?"
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"It is very case-by-case," Turner insisted.
"That's the problem," Sotomayor pushed back before Barrett weighed in.
"I'm kind of shocked, actually," the conservative justice reacted, "because I thought your own expert had said below that these kinds of cases were covered, and you're now saying they're not?"
"No, I'm not saying that," Turner responded.
"Well, you're hedging," Barrett observed. "I mean, Justice Sotomayor is asking you, would this be covered or not? And it was my understanding that the legislature's witnesses said that these would be covered."
"Yeah, and those doctors said if they were exercising their medical judgment, they could, in good faith, determine that life-saving care was necessary," Turner explained.
"But some doctors — couldn't doctors might reach a contrary conclusion, I think is what Sotomayor is asking you," Barrett pointed out.