Trump said that his position on abortion is that its legality should be left up to the states, and that it shouldn’t be in the realm of the federal government. Democrats and even some Republicans have decried the Arizona decision to revert to its previous laws protecting life that were on the books before Roe v. Wade took effect.

For the media, abortion is the wedge issue supreme and will give them fodder for animated discussion all the way through November. For pro-abortion activists, and the Democratic Party alike, this is an opportunity to motivate their electoral base to action in light of an incumbent president who is drooping in the polls. For pro-lifers, this is an opportunity for real change in the wake of the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health decision ending the decades of violence brought about by Roe v. Wade.

But an issue like this isn’t unique in American history.

Two U.S. Senate candidates debated a similar hot-button issue in 1858 Illinois. One was the incumbent Democrat, Stephen A. Douglas. His opponent was a Republican attorney named Abraham Lincoln. In what would become known as the “Lincoln-Douglas debates” (in which Lincoln gave his famous “House Divided” speech), a primary topic became the expansion of slavery into the U.S. territories. Douglas argued for the application of a doctrine called “Popular Sovereignty,” in which the territories would be allowed to choose for themselves whether or not to allow slavery. Lincoln claimed that such a doctrine could cause slavery to spread into the free (non-slave) states and perpetuate a policy which the U.S. had already limited in the Missouri Compromise.

Lincoln lost that election, but as we all know, went on to become the first Republican president. While in that office, Lincoln’s views on the slavery issue evolved even further. Lincoln took federal action on slavery in the Emancipation Proclamation and supported the 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution — a federal ban on slavery — which was ratified shortly after his assassination. Lincoln came to see slavery as an issue which should see repudiation from all spheres — not just an individual state’s decision.

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We would be hard-pressed to find any Democrat or Republican in the Unites States today who would say that individual states should be the final decision in deciding whether or not slavery should be legal. There will always be exceptions, but both parties know that it would be political suicide to take such a position. It’s because the issue itself supersedes the mere category of state or federal legislation. It’s a moral issue, and it’s inviolate. To relegate slavery to the level of mere local laws would undermine the very fabric of our nation. Our predecessors saw that slavery was doing just that in 1865 and wisely corrected it with the 13th Amendment. The addition of a constitutional amendment at the national level rightly underscored what was correctly enacted in many states at the state level. Americans don’t vote anymore on slavery, but it was necessary to take government action to reach that goal.

When it comes to the issue of abortion, Republicans have — at least until recently — taken a more transcendent view on the value of the unborn life. Their latest platform states:

“The Constitution’s guarantee that no one can ‘be deprived of life, liberty or property’ deliberately echoes the Declaration of Independence’s proclamation that ‘all’ are ‘endowed by their Creator’ with the inalienable right to life. Accordingly, we assert the sanctity of human life and affirm that the unborn child has a fundamental right to life which cannot be infringed. We support a human life amendment to the Constitution and legislation to make clear that the Fourteenth Amendment’s protections apply to children before birth.”

It remains to be seen how far Republicans have or will veer from this 2016 statement of party principle. During his administration, Trump advanced pro-life policies at a rate unseen in many previous administrations. Judging from Trump’s actions and from the Republican platform, abortion isn’t just an issue for the states.

For the Democrats, it’s clear that they do not view the protection of unborn life as a moral imperative. Their latest platform contains the phrase, “We believe unequivocally, like the majority of Americans, that every woman should be able to access high-quality reproductive health care services, including safe and legal abortion.” It’s safe to say that we won’t find Democratic spokespersons arguing for states’ rights on the issue of abortion — in fact, President Biden has stated a goal to codify Roe v. Wade into federal law. He posted on X this week, “Donald Trump is the reason Roe v. Wade has ended. If you reelect me and @KamalaHarris, we’ll be the reason it’s restored.” For the Democrats, abortion isn’t just an issue for the states.

The issue of slavery has shown us that, in the eyes of both political parties, some issues are bigger than a mere commitment to federalism. And with abortion, it’s clear that political expediency, rather than a staunch commitment to federalism, may be the operative factor for those making this appeal. Human lives aren’t fearfully and wonderfully legislated at the state level, they are fearfully and wonderfully made. We should treat them as such at all levels of government.

“As the Declaration of Independence affirms, the right to life comes from God, not government. As an inalienable right, the role and purpose of government is to protect human life. The duty of government is to secure the right to life and liberty.

“The right to life is not up to popular vote. Neither judges, nor lawmakers, nor the people have the right to dehumanize an entire class of people and thereby treat them as unworthy of life.

“Human life begins at fertilization. Elective abortion is therefore intentional termination of a human life. Setting aside Orwellian euphemisms such as ‘reproductive freedom,’ plain and simple – abortion is murder. Abortion is not a states’ rights issue. The right to life is not determined by geographical borders. It is not acceptable to conclude that murder is wrong in one state and permitted in another. The right to life transcends political ideologies, geographical boundaries, and time. The right to life is universal and transcendent.

“No decent person would argue that slavery is up to the states and subject to popular vote. Any politician who says abortion is a state’s right should be asked if slavery is a state’s right. And, if slavery should not be determined by popular vote, then how can the fate of innocent children be subject to popular vote? It cannot. The union of states could not survive with a checkerboard of free and slave states. The same is true of abortion. Abortion is not a ‘right’ to be trumpeted with soundbites or determined in the ballot box. Abortion is a shameful crime against humanity. Indeed, it is a crime against our Creator.

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“Recently, some politicians have demonstrated poor thinking as they try to determine the political winds. They are like the parable of Jesus where the seed was sown on rocky ground. When the winds and the heat come, the seed sprouts but soon withers because it did not have deep roots.

“The people need leaders who stand for and defend human life, especially on behalf of the most vulnerable among us. Politicians who run from life end up pleasing no one. History will show the error of their way, not unlike the history of slavery.

“Politicians should stand for life, not run from it.”

#1: POST-ABORTION “SIGNIFICANT” HEMORRHAGE/LACERATION
The first of the three emergency transfers documented at Access Health Center was on Tuesday, December 19, 2023, shortly after 12 Noon. The employee who called 911 initially responded to the dispatcher’s questioning by stating: “I don’t have any information,” she said, “I just know we need a transfer. The patient is stable, but I don’t know any more information.”

The responsible dispatcher obviously needed more information. She asked, “Try to get more information about what her symptoms are, just so my paramedics know what they are coming into.”

When the employee returned to the phone, she clarified that the 29-year-old woman was experiencing heavy bleeding. She then reiterated, “I don’t know any other information,” right before claiming the woman had no shock symptoms.

According to the computer-aided dispatch (CAD) transcript, the emergency was described by paramedics as a “hemorrhage/laceration” and coded as a “significant hemorrhage.” She was transported to Advocate Good Samaritan Hospital in Downers Grove.

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#2: POST-ABORTION “SIGNIFICANT” HEMORRHAGE/LACERATION
The second emergency was six days later, on Wednesday, December 27, 2023, at about 1:45 p.m.

Again, a patient was suffering from post-abortion hemorrhaging. The CAD reveals the woman was 23 years of age and was suffering from a “significant hemorrhage.”

The CAD noted under “chief complaint,” a “pregnancy problem (no contractions or birth).” Though the terminology is strange in light of the fact that the emergency involved an elective abortion, it also indicates the abortion may have been incomplete.

#3: DESPERATE TO HIDE “POSSIBLY DANGEROUS” HEMORRHAGE
Just two days later, on December 29, 2023, at about 1:30 p.m., an employee called 911 from the facility. She told the dispatcher a patient was being transported to the hospital by ambulance. She requested two police officers be dispatched to the scene to remove protestors who she claimed “are trying to record the patient leaving in the ambulance.”

She alleged they were “coming on the property.” However, the video provided to Operation Rescue showed no evidence of trespassing.

After nearly two minutes of discussion about the location and number of protestors, the dispatcher sounded surprised when the caller asked, “And then, are you going to send the, um, are you going to send the ambulance with the police officers?”

This clearly indicated paramedics had not yet been dispatched to treat the hemorrhaging patient. Not only was the employee’s report of protestors trying to record the patient leaving in an ambulance obviously untrue, but precious minutes had been wasted in securing the emergency care the hemorrhaging woman needed.

Upon further questioning by the dispatcher the caller stated the patient was 31 years of age and had a “Foley.” A Foley balloon catheter is a tube with a balloon that, when inserted into the uterus, can slow dangerously rapid blood flow.

According to the CAD, the young woman was suffering from “SERIOUS,” and “POSSIBLY DANGEROUS” hemorrhage from a “POSSIBLY DANGEROUS area.”

But rather than ensuring she promptly received critical medical intervention, the caller prioritized the attempted removal of pro-life witnesses.

The CAD also noted the patient had undergone two previous C-sections, a significant risk factor that further highlights the need for immediate emergency intervention.

This is the type of injury that has killed many women who trusted abortionists with their lives. See Operation Rescue’s archive of Maternal Patient Deaths from Abortion.

“Once again, this incident reveals the priorities of the abortionists calling the shots at this abortion mill that kills babies into the second trimester,” said Operation Rescue President Troy Newman.

“Considering this was the third critical injury in a ten-day period, it is not a surprise that these murderers put so much into hiding their recklessness. In doing so, they reveal what we already know about so-called doctors who are willing to kill for a living: they have no conscience, and their concern is about protecting their reputation – so that blood money keeps flowing into their blood-drenched hands.”

The Biden administration claims to have discovered a new power in the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act (EMTALA), a law that President Ronald Reagan signed, to require doctors to perform certain abortions in violation of many states’ pro-life laws. But Biden is misusing the law in the attempt to override state abortion bans and falsely declare all abortions as medical emergnecies.

Today, Idaho Attorney General Raúl Labrador filed a brief for Idaho, assisted by attorneys at Alliance Defending Freedom and Cooper & Kirk, with the U.S. Supreme Court in State of Idaho v. United States of America.

He told LifeNews:

“Idaho’s Defense of Life Act is perfectly consistent with the Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act, which provides explicit protections for ‘unborn children’ in four separate places. But the Biden administration is trying to use one life-affirming law to invalidate another. The administration’s radical interpretation of federal law is nothing more than a reckless disregard for Idaho’s right to protect life. We are asking the Supreme Court to end the administration’s unlawful overreach and to respect the people of Idaho’s decision to safeguard the lives of women and their unborn children.”

Alliance Defending Freedom Senior Counsel and Vice President of Appellate Advocacy John Bursch agreed.

“The Biden administration has no authority to override Idaho’s law and force emergency room doctors to perform abortions. There is no conflict between Idaho’s Defense of Life Act and EMTALA. Both Idaho’s law and EMTALA seek to protect the lives of women and their unborn children. The Supreme Court should end the Biden administration’s lawlessness and uphold Idaho’s rightful authority to protect life,” he said.

Sen. John Kennedy, who filed an amicus brief supporting the state, also agrees.

“The Biden administration’s case against Idaho’s Defense of Life Act is the president’s latest scheme to force his radical pro-abortion ideology on all Americans. Idaho requires doctors to protect the lives of mothers and their unborn children, and there’s no legal basis for the Biden administration to try to overrule a law that Idahoans passed democratically,” said Kennedy.

“Idahoans have passed a strong law to protect the lives of mothers and the unborn, yet the Biden administration is seeking every opportunity to expand abortion. This administration cherrypicked pieces of existing statute and wrongfully reinterpreted it to fit their agenda. Their manipulation of federal law cannot usurp state law, and there is no federal right to an abortion. This amicus brief demonstrates how the administration’s substantial federal overreach is aimed at undermining pro-life protections not only in Idaho but around the nation,” said Risch.

EMTALA requires hospitals to provide necessary stabilizing treatment to patients before transferring them to another hospital because of the patient’s inability to pay.

The Biden administration claims that EMTALA overrides pro-life state laws and requires doctors to perform abortions in some circumstances. However, the lawmakers’ amicus brief argues that EMTALA says nothing about abortion and actually requires doctors to provide treatment to both a mother and her unborn child.

Last year the Justice Department filed a lawsuit that challenges Idaho’s protective law — arguing that it would prevent medically necessary abortions. Despite false reports that abortion bans would prevent doctors from treating pregnant women for miscarriages or ectopic pregnancies, pro-life doctors confirm that is not the case. Some 35 states have laws making it clear that miscarriage is not abortion and every state with an abortion ban allows treatment for both.

The federal government brought the suit seeking to invalidate the state’s “criminal prohibition on providing abortions as applied to women suffering medical emergencies,” Attorney General Merrick Garland said. It’s the first lawsuit the Biden administration has brought in response to the Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade.

Biden hopes to turn emergency rooms in the state in abortion centers.

On behalf of the state of Idaho, attorneys with Alliance Defending Freedom and Cooper & Kirk assisted the Idaho Attorney General’s office in filing an emergency application for stay pending appeal Monday with the U.S. Supreme Court in State of Idaho v. United States of America. The case involves the Biden administration’s unlawful attempt to use a law that ensures indigent patients receive emergency room care to force doctors to perform abortions that are illegal under Idaho law.

The motion asks the nation’s high court to immediately halt the 9th Circuit’s ruling holding that the federal Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act preempts Idaho’s Defense of Life Act. Idaho’s pro-life law imposes penalties on physicians who perform prohibited abortions unless doing so is necessary to save the life of the pregnant woman or other exceptions apply. The federal government claims—and the lower court ruled—that EMTALA requires abortions in violation of this law if an emergency room doctor thinks it is appropriate.

“Hospitals—especially emergency rooms—are centers for preserving life. The government has no business transforming them into abortion clinics,” said ADF Senior Counsel Erin Hawley, vice president of the Center for Life and regulatory practice. “Emergency room physicians can, and do, treat ectopic pregnancies and other life-threatening conditions. But elective abortion is not life-saving care—it ends the life of the unborn child—and the government has no authority to override Idaho’s law barring these procedures. We urge the Supreme Court to halt the lower court’s injunction and allow Idaho emergency rooms to fulfill their primary function—saving lives.”

After the Supreme Court returned the issue of abortion to the states in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, the federal government sued the state of Idaho, claiming that EMTALA, an ancillary provision of the Medicare statute, preempts Idaho’s pro-life law. But as explained in the emergency application, “EMTALA is silent on abortion and actually requires stabilizing treatment for the unborn children of pregnant women.”

“The United States’ position conflicts with the universal agreement of federal courts of appeal that EMTALA does not dictate a federal standard of care or displace state medical standards. The district court accepted the United States’ revisionist, post-Dobbs reading of EMTALA and enjoined Idaho’s Defense of Life Act in emergency rooms. The district court’s injunction effectively turns EMTALA’s protection for the uninsured into a federal super-statute on the issue of abortion, one that strips Idaho of its sovereign interest in protecting innocent, human life and turns emergency rooms into a federal enclave where state standards of care do not apply,” the application further notes.

ADF attorneys are litigating a similar case in Texas that is currently before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit. In that case, State of Texas v. Becerra, a district court in Texas blocked the Biden administration’s attempt to force emergency rooms doctors to perform elective abortions.

Idaho’s abortion ban permits a physician who does an abortion to raise the affirmative defense that the abortion was necessary to save the mother’s life or that the pregnancy resulted from rape or incest that was reported. In both cases, the physician must choose a procedure that is most likely to save the life of the baby and protect the mother. The law explicitly excludes contraception from the definition of abortion, and women upon whom abortions are performed may not be prosecuted.

The pro-life laws in Idaho and other states include clearly defined exceptions that allow abortions in the cases when a mother’s life is at risk. Because the pro-life movement cares about the lives of both mother and child and there are rare cases in which only the mother’s life can be saved, it supports such exceptions.

But these exceptions mean the Biden administration’s guidance is unnecessary. Undermining Idaho’s life-saving efforts and expanding abortions appear to be the administration’s real goal.