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Four women are suing the state of Idaho after they were denied abortions due to potentially fatal fetal abnormalities. The lawsuit seeks clarification of medical exemptions to Idaho’s strict abortion laws. The plaintiffs are scheduled to testify about their experiences in court on Tuesday and Wednesday.
Four women who are suing the state of Idaho because they were denied abortions are scheduled to testify Tuesday and Wednesday about their experiences traveling out of state to end non-viable pregnancies.
The case, which is at the center of an upcoming trial in Ada County District Court, seeks to clarify medical exemptions to Idaho’s strict abortion laws. The plaintiffs are the Idaho Academy of Family Physicians, two doctors and four women who testified this week, saying they learned during their pregnancies that their fetuses were unlikely to survive.
The lawsuit, filed last year, says women have suffered “unimaginable tragedy and health risks due to Idaho’s abortion ban,” and that doctors in Idaho are not allowed to perform abortions without risking jail time. They say there is a lack of sufficient guidance on when it can be done.
Idaho has two laws restricting abortion. The strictest laws make it a felony to terminate a pregnancy at any stage, with limited exceptions, and providers who violate the law are subject to two to five years in prison. The second law allows private citizens to sue health care providers who perform abortions after six weeks of pregnancy. Neither policy provides an exception for fatal fetal abnormalities, which are the focus of the lawsuits.
“We’re not trying to tell the state of Idaho how we have to write our laws. We’re just saying the laws as written aren’t working,” the plaintiffs said. said Nick Kabat, an attorney with the Reproductive Rights Center who is representing him.
Idaho Governor Brad Little and Idaho Attorney General Raul Labrador are defendants in the lawsuit. Mr. Labrador’s office declined to comment, and Mr. Little’s office did not respond to a request for comment.
The Idaho case is similar to Zulawski v. Texas, filed last year by the Center for Reproductive Rights. In May, the Texas Supreme Court ruled against 20 plaintiffs who were denied abortions in the state despite dangerous pregnancy complications.
Kabat said he was optimistic there would be a different outcome this time because “we didn’t get a trial in Texas.”
Plaintiff Rebecca Vincen-Brown, who lives in Ada County, Idaho, said she is similarly hopeful.
Last year, 16 weeks into her pregnancy, Vincen Brown learned that her fetus had several abnormalities. These included damaged airways, a missing bladder, and a heart and brain that weren’t developing properly. Subsequent DNA testing revealed that the fetus had a rare chromosomal condition called triploidy. Doctors told her that the pregnancy would not be possible and that there was a high chance of miscarriage or stillbirth.
“There was no way in the world that this would be the last living baby born,” Vincen-Brown said.
She and her husband decided to terminate the pregnancy at 17 weeks to avoid risking her health or fertility. That wasn’t allowed in Idaho, so they drove seven hours to Portland, Oregon. After the first day of the two-day surgery, Vincen-Brown delivered the baby in a hotel bathroom at around 4 a.m., with her two-year-old daughter in a separate room.
“The decision to have an abortion was probably the hardest decision of our lives, but the trauma we caused when we went to Portland was completely unnecessary and 100% preventable.” she said.
A protest demanding abortion rights takes place at the Idaho State Capitol in downtown Boise on May 14, 2022. Sarah A. Miller/Idaho Statesman/Tribune News Service/Getty Images
The lawsuit alleges that the Idaho law violates a pregnant person’s right to safety and equal protection and the right of a physician to practice medicine under the state constitution. It asks the court to declare that doctors in Idaho can provide abortion care in three specific scenarios:
A pregnant person has a medical complication that makes it unsafe to continue the pregnancy or poses a risk of infection or bleeding. Pregnant people either have underlying conditions that are exacerbated by pregnancy, cannot be treated effectively, or require recurrent invasive interventions. There is little chance that the fetus will survive pregnancy or birth.
The case comes on the heels of an election in which abortion was a key issue and seven states passed measures protecting abortion, including two that repealed existing bans (Missouri and Arizona). The case is one of many ongoing legal challenges to the abortion ban. The Wisconsin Supreme Court heard arguments Monday over whether the state can enforce its 1849 abortion ban.
In April, the U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments in a separate case challenging Idaho’s blanket ban on abortion, arguing that the state law violates federal policy requiring certain standards of emergency care. was. The justices dismissed the case in June and sent it back to the Court of Appeals.
Idaho’s two abortion bans went into effect in August 2022, about two months after the Supreme Court struck down Roe v. Wade. The state’s six-week limit makes exceptions for rape, incest, to save the life of a pregnant woman, or to prevent “serious and irreversible impairment of a major bodily function.” The total ban, on the other hand, provides exceptions for doctors who determine that an abortion is necessary to save a pregnant woman’s life, and in cases of rape or incest. However, abortions in such cases must be completed in the first trimester, and the pregnant person must report the pregnancy to law enforcement.
Yet another Idaho law that makes it a crime to help a pregnant minor travel out of state for an abortion has been temporarily blocked by a federal judge.
Kabat said his defense team plans to argue in court this week that unless exceptions are further clarified, Idaho’s abortion ban is deadly. But tracking such deaths is nearly impossible because the state has refused to renew the Maternal Mortality Review Board, which investigates pregnancy-related deaths, which expires in July 2023.
“Someone may have died in the state of Idaho, but no one was truly evaluating that death,” Kabat said.
