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On Tuesday, the United States Supreme Court heard arguments in consolidated cases Idaho v USA And Moyle v USA that threaten the lives of pregnant people across the country by jeopardizing access to emergency abortion care.

Christian nationalists continue to push their unpopular and dangerous agenda to systematically dismantle access to life-saving abortion care across the country. Following the disastrous decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, which fell over Roe v. Wade protective measures, the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act (EMTALA) is now on the chopping block.

The question is whether or not EMTALA, a federal law, preempts Idaho’s extreme abortion ban and whether Idaho should allow emergency abortions in hospitals in situations where pregnant people need immediate stabilizing care when their lives are in danger. To put this in context, since the ban became law in Idaho, there have been reports that countless pregnant women have been transported out of state to undergo life-saving emergency abortions, as the risk to physicians providing abortion care to save their patient’s lives is enormous. is. If the already tainted Supreme Court sides with anti-abortion extremists and Christian nationalists, the consequences for the entire country will be catastrophic and, let there be no confusion: people shall die. Despite shoving the false title “pro-life” down the public’s throats for decades, it is abundantly clear that these people have no problem with pregnant people dying, even in scenarios where the person’s death will result in the death of the other. fetus too.

EMTALA was passed in 1986 with the goal of ensuring that patients in emergency situations can receive stabilizing treatment in a hospital, regardless of their ability to pay, citizenship, etc. This crucial law is the reason that emergency rooms cannot prevent individuals from receiving stabilizing care received. and has consistently saved thousands upon thousands of lives since its introduction. The law has been upheld as a precedent for nearly four decades.

During Tuesday’s oral arguments, Justices Ketanji Brown Jackson, Sonia Sotomayor, and Elena Kagan made strong arguments in support of EMTALA and poked major holes in the plaintiff’s arguments; However, with a 6-3 conservative majority on the Court, the future of EMTALA protections for emergency abortions remains precarious. Since the Supreme Court opened up about overturning long-standing precedents, the Christian nationalist right has found the iron hot to ban all access to abortion and contraception nationwide. So far, this treacherous calculation has unfortunately proven correct.

These attacks on abortion access seek to impose Christian nationalist ideals on a non-consenting nation by taking over institutions, in this case an unelected institution in our Supreme Court, and weaponizing them against marginalized people. Abortion access is popular in the United States and support is growing: 1 in 8 people now say that protecting access to abortion is the most important issue to them in the 2024 election, according to KFF, an independent research and health policy news organization. For Roe v. Wade Because the proposal was nullified, the same poll found that the majority of people who said abortion was their main issue were anti-abortion. This is a huge shift in just a few years and underscores the importance of the issue of expanding access to abortion across the country in the upcoming elections.

There is significant difference between the values ​​of the Supreme Court, the values ​​of far-right Christian nationalist lawmakers and activists, and the values ​​of the average American. In a democracy, the consent of the governed is the most fundamental requirement for a social contract between the people and their elected representatives. By continuing to impose a fascist agenda focused on controlling people’s bodies and pregnancy outcomes, the Supreme Court risks being permanently viewed as a political body whose sole purpose is to roll back civil rights.

To protect not just access to abortion, but our entire fledgling democracy, we must protect our institutions from corruption and extremism and stop imposing the bigoted views of a small minority of the population on a nation of more than 340 million people.

The Supreme Court must put aside their extremist ideals for a moment and act now to save the lives of pregnant people across the country by preserving EMTALA.