SCOTUS considers whether Idaho abortion ban conflicts with federal law | The Excerpt

On Thursday’s episode of The Excerpt podcast: USA TODAY Supreme Court Correspondent Maureen Groppe recaps Supreme Court arguments over a state abortion ban. Israel appears set to launch a military offensive on Rafah in southern Gaza. A grand jury has charged Arizona Republicans and former aides to Donald Trump in a scheme to keep him in the White House by falsely certifying he won the state in 2020. The Arizona House has voted to repeal an 1864 abortion ban. New FAFSA rules opened up a 'grandparent loophole' that boosts 529 plans. USA TODAY Health Reporter Karen Weintraub talks about a woman with a new lease on life thanks to a heart pump and pig kidney transplant.

Hit play on the player below to hear the podcast and follow along with the transcript beneath it.  This transcript was automatically generated, and then edited for clarity in its current form. There may be some differences between the audio and the text.

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Taylor Wilson:

Good morning. I'm Taylor Wilson, and today is Thursday, April 25th, 2024. This is The Excerpt.

Today, a look at the Supreme Court argument surrounding Idaho's abortion ban. Plus, Israel appears set to launch a military offensive on Rafah, and how a pig kidney transplant helped bring a grandmother back from the brink of death.

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The Supreme Court yesterday heard two different views of the clash between a near-total abortion ban in Idaho and a federal law that the Biden administration says requires hospitals to provide emergency abortions if needed to protect the health of the mother. I spoke with USA Today Supreme Court correspondent Maureen Groppe to learn more. Maureen, thanks for making the time.

Maureen Groppe:

Happy to be here.

Taylor Wilson:

So what exactly is Idaho's abortion ban, and what does it functionally do for residents in that state?

Maureen Groppe:

Idaho's law bans abortion except when necessary to save the life of the mother. Doctors in Idaho say they need to be able to intervene earlier if a woman is not on the brink of death, but she is facing major health risks unless her pregnancy is terminated.

Taylor Wilson:

So what's that issue then in this Supreme Court case?

Maureen Groppe:

The court's deciding whether a federal law requires doctors to offer abortions if they're needed to stabilize a woman's health, even if that conflicts with a state's abortion ban, that law is called the Emergency Medical Treatment & Labor Act. It's known by its acronym, EMTALA, and Congress passed that law in 1986 to prevent hospitals from turning patients away if they didn't have health insurance.

Taylor Wilson:

Justices yesterday heard two different views on Idaho's ban here. What did we hear from Idaho's lawyers, and what did the Biden administration argue here?

Maureen Groppe:

Idaho's lawyer said that the Supreme Court, when it overturned Roe v. Wade, left the issue up to states to decide. The Justice Department focused on the harm to women who are caught between the state restrictions and the federal requirements.

Taylor Wilson:

How have the lower courts, Maureen, ruled on this issue?

Maureen Groppe:

They've been divided. A district court said Idaho couldn't enforce a part of its law that conflicts with the federal law. A panel of appeals court judges disagreed, but they were overridden by their colleagues. And in Texas, however, a judge said the federal law can't be used in Texas to require abortions in emergency situations. An appeals court panel agreed with that decision.

Taylor Wilson:

Things got tense yesterday. There were protests outside the court. How tense was the scene, and who was involved?

Maureen Groppe:

Abortion's an issue that brings out passion on both sides, and we saw that outside the court, one of the more dramatic scenes was created by abortion rights advocates. They laid down in front of the Supreme Court steps while covered in sheets stained with fake blood. Behind them were mourners in black clothing, and they were holding signs saying that women in states with these strict abortion bans are going to die without the protection of the federal law.

Taylor Wilson:

Maureen, just broadly, what impact could the court's handling of this issue have on abortion outside of Idaho nationally?

Maureen Groppe:

The Supreme Court's decision will determine if there are some federal limits to strict abortion bans. That will affect how states can write and enforce those bans. If the court says the federal law doesn't apply to abortion restrictions, then states without these bans, they may see more women coming to their hospitals in emergency situations.

Taylor Wilson:

All right. What's coming up next, Maureen? What can we expect from this issue, and how the court's dealing with it?

Maureen Groppe:

This was the second-to-last case. The court heard this term, and it's likely to be one of the last cases they'll decide before adjourning for the summer. So we're expected to get their opinion in June.

Taylor Wilson:

All right, Maureen Groppe covers the Supreme Court for USA Today. Thank you, Maureen.

Maureen Groppe:

Thank you.

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Taylor Wilson:

Israel appears set to launch a military offensive on Rafah in southern Gaza, where more than 1 million Palestinians have taken shelter. Israel says it's the last remaining bastion of Hamas in the territory. The timing of an attack now awaits approval by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's war cabinet, according to Israeli and Western media outlets. Some observers believe that President Joe Biden's opposition to an assault has softened. Last month, he warned that an invasion of Rafa would be a mistake. But last week, the White House said the US and Israel have a shared objective to see Hamas defeated in Rafah. Meanwhile, protests continue on college campuses, with many protesters pressing their demands for an end to civilian casualties in Gaza. Columbia University announced yesterday that students had agreed to scale down their encampment. Though out West, police arrested protesters at the University of Southern California, which closed to the public yesterday amid clashes between pro-Palestinian demonstrators and authorities at the school.

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A grand jury has charged 11 Arizona Republicans and seven former aides to Donald Trump in a scheme to keep Trump in the White House by falsely certifying he won the state in 2020. The charges appear to include Trump's former lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, and former chief of staff, Mark Meadows. The indictment alleges the slate of Republicans, sometimes known as fake electors, engaged in a conspiracy aimed at, quote, "preventing the lawful transfer of the presidency of the United States, keeping President Donald J. Trump in office against the will of Arizona voters, and depriving Arizona voters of their right to vote and have their votes counted." Unquote. The grand jury's decision could bring criminal consequences for an unprecedented plot to subvert the will of Arizona voters, one that has broken faith in elections and fueled election conspiracies that have taken root in GOP politics in the state.

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Also in Arizona news, the state's House yesterday narrowly voted to repeal a near total abortion ban dating from 1864. The vote caps three weeks of efforts that have brought national attention to the state. The 32 to 28 vote came after passionate speeches from most Republicans who described abortion in graphic detail and as against Republican values. But their attempts to block the appeal failed when three Republicans joined all 29 Democrats to pass the house bill. Things now move to the state's Senate, which is set to take up the matter next Wednesday if there's agreement to bring it up for a vote. Last week, the Senate started work on Senate Bill 1734, which is identical to the measure the House approved.

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The 529 education savings plan is getting a couple of big upgrades as a tool to save and pay for school. Starting this year, Congress is allowing up to $35,000 in leftover savings in the plan to roll over tax-free into Roth individual retirement accounts, eliminating fears, unused money could forever be trapped or incur taxes. The Department of Education has revised the free application for federal student aid, or FAFSA, creating the so-called grandparent loophole that allows grandparents to use a 529 plan to fund a grandchild's education without affecting the student's financial aid eligibility. Previously, withdrawals could have reduced aid eligibility by up to 50% of the amount of the distribution.

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A grandmother on the brink of death received an experimental surgery earlier this month, getting a new heart valve and a kidney from a gene-edited pig. I spoke with USA Today health reporter Karen Weintraub for more. Hello, Karen.

Karen Weintraub:

Hi. Thanks for having me.

Taylor Wilson:

Thanks for hopping on. So, Karen, can you just start by telling us about this New Jersey grandmother and her really debilitating health issues?

Karen Weintraub:

Yeah, she was in terrible shape. She'd had a heart attack in 2017 and really was spiraling downward since then. She had diabetes. She had heart bypass surgery. She was on dialysis. So both her heart and her kidneys were giving out simultaneously, and she'd recently broken her foot. So she was just pretty immobilized, and her world was just getting smaller and smaller. She could barely leave bed.

Taylor Wilson:

So she, now, went through an experimental surgery earlier this month as a last-ditch shot. What was this procedure?

Karen Weintraub:

It was actually two procedures. So one was, she got a heart pump, an artificial pump, and then she got a pig kidney, and the two have never been used before. In fact, the heart pump has been around for several decades, but usually, needing a kidney transplant means you can't get the heart pump. So she's the first person to get a transplant and a pump together, and actually, has opened the door now for more people to get the pump and a human transplant. She wasn't eligible for either alone, so together she became eligible for both, and she is recovering well at the moment.

Taylor Wilson:

Karen, how do these procedures compare to what you and I talked about previously here on the show with the pig kidney transplant in Massachusetts, where you are?

Karen Weintraub:

So the previous one was also a pig kidney, but a pig raised in a very different way. So also gene edited, but with a different process. So that pig had 69 gene edits. Genes that were knocked out that were eliminated for the pig, genes that were knocked in that were added. This one only had one gene eliminated, and that was a gene that's involved in immediate organ rejection. If you take a kidney from a pig and put it in a person, it will immediately be rejected, and every other problem that might arise, they're dealing with with medications instead. With the Massachusetts pig, they try to deal with it with gene edits. The difference is, the pig that they used in New York can be bred like a normal pig, raised in a farm, have babies, and be bred in a herd. Whereas the one in Massachusetts is going to have to be cloned. Each one is an exact replica of another, and that's a much more scientifically complicated process, more expensive process.

Taylor Wilson:

Karen, can you help us understand just how difficult it is to get an organ transplant off the waiting list? And how might animal organs offer solutions here going forward?

Karen Weintraub:

So more than 100,000 Americans are on the transplant list at the moment. Far, far fewer than that get a transplant every year. So people wait years to get a transplant, getting sicker all the time. Many people die while they're waiting. Many more people don't even qualify for the list, like this woman, would not have qualified for the transplant list. So having pig organs, if they do become available in large numbers, could relieve that waiting list and the wait time. Obviously, the longer you wait, the sicker you are. So if you could get an organ transplant when you're healthier, the recovery would be faster and easier also. The other major issue with organ transplants are the immunosuppressive medications that you have to take after that transplant. Even with a human, you have to take these medicines for your body to not reject an organ from somebody else with a pig. It could be a whole other level of medication. They're still working that out.

This woman, the pig organ that she got, she also received another organ from the pig called the thymus, which is involved with the immune system. The idea there is that she'll need less rejection medication. These medications are wonderful. It keeps you from rejecting the kidney but also tamps down your own immune response, so you're more vulnerable to infections like COVID-19 and other infections, and also can make you more vulnerable to cancer. So the less medication you need to tamp down your immune system, the better you are long-term.

Taylor Wilson:

All right, fascinating science. Karen Weintraub covers health for USA Today. Thank you, Karen.

Karen Weintraub:

Thank you.

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Taylor Wilson:

The NFL draft is tonight, with the first round in prime time. You can tune in at 8:00 PM Eastern time and follow along with USA Today Sports.

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Be sure to stay tuned to The Excerpt this afternoon when my co-host Dana Taylor is joined by Gabriel Metcalf from California Forever to talk about creating an ambitious new dream city and whether it might be able to solve the state's affordable housing problem. You could find the episode right here on this feed, beginning at 4:00 PM Eastern time. Thanks for listening to The Excerpt. You can get the podcast wherever you get your audio, and if you're on a smart speaker, just ask for The Excerpt. I'm Taylor Wilson, back tomorrow with more of The Excerpt from USA Today.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: SCOTUS to decide if an abortion ban violates federal law | The Excerpt