Idaho officials asked the U.S. Supreme Court on Monday to temporarily stop a federal court’s ruling which blocked the Republican-governed State from enforcing their near-total ban on abortion in medical emergencies following a legal challenge brought by the Democratic administration of President Joe Biden.

Republican state officials asked the Supreme Court to suspend the preliminary injunction of U.S. district judge B. Lynn Winmill, issued on August 20, 2022 after he determined that the state’s restrictions on abortion were in conflict with federal law which ensures patients can receive “stabilizing” care during an emergency.

In court papers, Idaho’s Republican Attorney General and top Republican State lawmakers told the Supreme Court Winmill’s decision had allowed “an ongoing violation both of Idaho’s sovereignty as well as its traditional police powers over medical practice.”

In June 2022, the conservative majority of the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. This decision recognized the right for a woman to terminate her pregnancy under the U.S. Constitution. This ruling led to a new wave of abortion restrictions in Republican-led state.

Idaho’s so-called trigger law, which was signed into effect by a Republican governor and passed by a Republican-led legislature in 2020, automatically went into effect when Roe was overturned. Idaho’s Defense of Life Act bans abortions, except when it is necessary to save the mother’s life.

After the Roe decision, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, under Biden, issued federal guidance that stated that the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act of 1986, which required hospitals to “stabilize”, patients with emergency medical situations, took precedence over state bans on abortion.

In August 2022, the Biden administration filed a lawsuit against Idaho for its trigger law. They argued that it was in conflict with the 1986 law as the federal statute may have required abortions which would not fall under Idaho’s exception to save the mother’s health.

Winmill agreed that month, blocking the Idaho Law from being enforced when abortions were needed to prevent putting a woman’s “serious health” in “jeopardy,” or risking “serious impairment of bodily functions.”

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, based in San Francisco, is composed of a three-judge panel. In September, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals agreed to allow Idaho to enforce its ban while an appeal was pending. The full 9th Circuit reversed this panel’s decision, and granted the Biden administration’s request to temporarily block the Idaho law.

The administration has waged similar legal battles in Texas. U.S. district judge James Wesley Hendrix, in August 2022, preliminarily banned the federal government’s requirement that healthcare providers perform abortions on emergency room patients if it was in conflict with a Republican-backed Texas ban on abortion.

The administration has appealed this ruling to the Fifth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans. Circuit Court of Appeals of New Orleans.