An Idaho judge on Friday denied a request by the state’s top legal chief to throw out a lawsuit seeking to clarify the exemptions tucked inside the state’s broad abortion ban. Instead, 4th District Judge Jason Scott narrowed the case to focus only on the circumstances where an abortion would be allowed and whether abortion care in emergency situations applies to Idaho’s state constitutional right to enjoy and defend life and the right to secure safety.
Quick Read
- Idaho Abortion Ban Lawsuit: An Idaho judge denied the state’s request to dismiss a lawsuit challenging its broad abortion ban, focusing the case on the circumstances under which abortion is allowed and its relation to state constitutional rights.
- Judge’s Decision: 4th District Judge Jason Scott ruled to narrow the lawsuit to specific aspects of Idaho’s abortion law, specifically emergency abortion care and constitutional rights to life and safety.
- Background of the Lawsuit: Filed by four women and physicians earlier in the year, the lawsuit challenges the state’s abortion ban, claiming it violates fundamental rights.
- Center for Reproductive Rights’ Argument: The Center for Reproductive Rights argues that Idaho’s Constitution guarantees fundamental rights that the abortion ban risks violating.
- State’s Counterargument: Idaho’s Attorney General Raul Labrador’s office pointed out that the state Supreme Court has upheld abortion bans, arguing that the case was already settled.
- Judge’s Partial Agreement with State: While agreeing that there’s no fundamental right to abortion in the state constitution, the judge stated the court didn’t reject all possible future challenges.
- Removal of Named Defendants: Gov. Brad Little, Labrador, and the Idaho Board of Medicine were removed as defendants, leaving the state as the sole defendant.
- Plaintiffs’ Situations: The women involved in the lawsuit were denied abortions in Idaho despite serious pregnancy complications, leading them to travel to Oregon or Washington for procedures.
- Idaho’s Trigger Law: Idaho’s abortion ban, a trigger law passed in March 2020, was activated in 2022 after the overturning of Roe v. Wade.
- Impact on Healthcare Providers: Since the implementation of the ban, the number of obstetricians and pregnancy-related specialists in Idaho has reportedly declined.
The Associated Press has the story:
Judge allows lawsuit that challenges Idaho’s broad abortion ban to move forward
Newslooks- (AP)
An Idaho judge on Friday denied a request by the state’s top legal chief to throw out a lawsuit seeking to clarify the exemptions tucked inside the state’s broad abortion ban.
Instead, 4th District Judge Jason Scott narrowed the case to focus only on the circumstances where an abortion would be allowed and whether abortion care in emergency situations applies to Idaho’s state constitutional right to enjoy and defend life and the right to secure safety.
Scott’s decision comes just two weeks after a hearing where Idaho’s Attorney General Raul Labrador’s office attempted to dismiss the case spearheaded by four women and several physicians, who filed the case earlier this year.
Similar lawsuits are playing out around the nation, with some of them, like Idaho’s, brought by the Center for Reproductive Rights on behalf of doctors and pregnant people who were denied access to abortions while facing serious pregnancy complications.
According to the Center for Reproductive Rights, Idaho’s Constitution entitles its residents to certain fundamental rights, but a sweeping abortion ban poses a risk to those rights.
Labrador’s office countered that the Idaho Supreme Court has already upheld the state’s abortion bans — thus solving any lingering questions on the matter.
Scott agreed in part with the state attorneys that the state Supreme Court ruled there was no fundamental right to abortion inside the state constitution, but added that the court didn’t reject “every conceivable as applied challenge that might be made in a future case.”
“We’re grateful the court saw through the state’s callous attempt to ignore the pain and suffering their laws are causing Idahoans,” said Gail Deady, a senior staff attorney for the Center for Reproductive Rights. “Now the state of Idaho will be forced to answer to these women in a court of law.”
Meanwhile, the Idaho judge also sided with the attorney general in removing Gov. Brad Little, Labrador, and the Idaho Board of Medicine as named defendants in the lawsuit — leaving the state of Idaho as the only remaining defendant. Scott called the long list of defendants as “redundant,” saying that all three would be subject to whatever is ultimately decided in the lawsuit.
“This is only the beginning of this litigation, but the Attorney General is encouraged by this ruling,” Labrador’s office said in a statement. “He has long held that the named defendants were simply inappropriate, and that our legislatively passed laws do not violate the Idaho Constitution by narrowly limiting abortions or interfering with a doctor’s right to practice medicine.”
The four women named in the case were all denied abortions in Idaho after learning they were pregnant with fetuses that were unlikely to go to term or survive birth, and that the pregnancies also put them at risk of serious medical complications. All four traveled to Oregon or Washington for the procedures.
Idaho has several abortion bans, but notably Idaho lawmakers approved a ban as a trigger law in March of 2020, before the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade.
At the time, any suggestion that the ban could harm pregnant people was quickly brushed off by the bill’s sponsor, Republican Sen. Todd Lakey, who said during one debate that the health of the mother “weighs less, yes, than the life of the child.”
The trigger ban took effect in 2022. Since then, Idaho’s roster of obstetricians and other pregnancy-related specialists has been shrinking.
