
The women of the Supreme Court—including conservative Justice Amy Coney Barrett—tore into a lawyer for Idaho on Wednesday over the state’s law allowing for abortions only when a woman is at imminent risk of death.
Lawyers for the state and the federal government were before the court to debate whether Idaho’s law contradicts a federal law requiring hospitals to provide stabilizing treatment to patients in emergency condition.
The female justices wasted no time digging in on Idaho’s lawyer, Joshua Turner, asking him about various cases in which women would and would not be entitled to an abortion under Idaho state law.
Justice Sonia Sotomayor listed off a number of real-life scenarios in which women were denied abortions because of state law, including one woman whose baby had died by the time she delivered and required an immediate hysterectomy.