At issue is a clash between federal and state law about how pregnant women must be treated in the emergency room. Specifically, whether a state may ban medical termination of a pregnancy if the woman's health, but not her life, is in grave danger. The case centers on a law enacted in 1986 to stop hospitals from turning away uninsured patients or dumping them on other hospitals. It's known as the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act, or EMTALA. The law says that as a condition for receiving Medicare funds, hospital emergency departments must stabilize a patient whose life or health is at risk. If the hospital can't do that, it must provide safe transport to a facility that can. But Idaho and a few other states have now enacted laws that ban emergency abortions unless the mother's life, but not her health, is at risk.