TBA Law Blog


Posted by: Stacey Shrader Joslin on Aug 26, 2022

Tennessee Attorney General Herbert Slatery III has joined with 16 other state attorneys general to defend a state law in Idaho that bans abortions in all cases, Tennessee Lookout reports. The federal government is suing to block the law in cases that require hospitals receiving Medicare funding to provide lifesaving care. The group of attorneys general write in their amicus brief that the federal government cannot use its Medicare contracting authority to override state law. Such an attempt to intervene in Idaho law, would “directly subvert state law on a matter reserved to the States,” they argue. Earlier this week, a federal judge temporarily blocked a portion of the law that makes it a crime to perform an emergency abortion to prevent bodily injury to the patient.