'Not a victory' but a 'delay': Supreme Court punts on Idaho emergency abortion

As accidentally previewed Wednesday, the Supreme Court Thursday decided to allow emergency abortions to continue in Idaho. Instead of deciding Moyle v. United States on merits—should federal law say emergency room doctors can provide abortions to stabilize pregnant patients—the court dismissed the case as “improvidently granted,” meaning they shouldn’t have taken it in the first place while it was still being litigated. They are sending it back down to the lower courts. Additionally, it reinstated an injunction that requires Idaho to allow abortions in the case of major health crises. 

That’s kicking the can down the road. A cynical person would say the conservatives are postponing making a decision about saving pregnant people’s lives until after the election for political purposes, to avoid a repeat of the Dobbs fallout from 2022. They’d likely be right.