Welcome to Supreme Court Brief, my regular column breaking down the top news from the nation's highest court. My name is Jimmy Hoover. I have been covering the Supreme Court for the National Law Journal and Law.com since April 2023. (April 24th, to be exact!) Thanks for reading. If you'd like to get in touch, you can reach me at [email protected]. Follow me on X: @JimmyHooverDC.

The court heard a major abortion case Wednesday about an Idaho law that bans virtually all abortions except to save the life of the mother. The case asks whether the Biden administration is right that Idaho's Defense of Life Act, one of the strictest abortion bans in the country, runs afoul of a federal law requiring stabilizing care for individuals facing medical emergencies.

The federal government says the federal Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act preempts the state statute because it requires doctors to perform abortions to care for serious pregnancy complications that would present severe health risks for the mother but are otherwise not life threatening.