Another Supreme Court decision on abortion made its way into public view early, but this time it wasn’t a leak — the Idaho ruling was accidentally posted to its own website Wednesday morning when the court was officially releasing two other opinions. A Supreme Court spokesperson said the document was “inadvertently and briefly uploaded” by the Court’s Publications Department, but the ruling “has not been released” (at least, officially).
“The Court’s opinion in Moyle v. United States and Idaho v. United States will be issued in due course,” Supreme Court spokesperson Patricia McCabe said.
The ruling, siding with the Biden administration, was obtained and shared by Bloomberg Law. It’s unclear whether this is the final decision, a draft version or something else. The decision would allow for emergency abortions in Idaho, reinstating a lower court order allowing for the procedure to protect the health of the mother.
The accidental posting is reminiscent of the early release two years ago of the Dobbs decision that reversed Roe v. Wade, though that was leaked early and published by Politico rather than being unintentionally published in error.
The Supreme Court generally aims to finish releasing decisions by the end of June and earlier this week added both Thursday and Friday as additional decision release days, so the public will likely receive an answer by the end of the week.
While the document posted Wednesday dismisses appeals by both the state of Idaho and Republican leaders, it doesn’t resolve the underlying core issues of the case, leaving room for future cases examining those issues.
