Several pro-abortion groups urged a federal judge Tuesday to block an Idaho law that protects underage girls from abuse and unborn babies from abortion.
KFF Health News reports the new lawsuit from Legal Voice and several northwestern abortion funds challenges an abortion trafficking law that prohibits underage girls from being taken across state lines for abortions without their parents’ consent.
Idaho protects unborn babies by banning elective abortions, but most of its neighboring states allow abortion on demand, including on underage girls without their parents’ knowledge or consent.
Pro-life leaders said the legislation, signed by Gov. Brad Little in April, will protect unborn babies as well as young victims of human trafficking and sexual abuse by ensuring that their parents are involved if they want – or are being coerced into – an abortion.
Responding to the lawsuit, Idaho Attorney General Raúl Labrador’s Office said Labrador will “vigorously” defend the pro-life law in court.
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“While we don’t comment on pending litigation, our office is always prepared to vigorously defend the constitutionality of statutes duly passed by the Legislature,” spokeswoman Emily Kleinworth told Boise State Public Radio in a statement.
Abortion activists with Legal Voice and The Lawyering Project claimed in the lawsuit that the law violates interstate travel, free speech and freedom of association, according to the report.
“It is unconstitutional to forbid citizens from traveling because you disapprove of the reasons they are driving to another state,” said Wendy Heipt, a lawyer with Legal Voice. “Idahoans, like all people, should be free to travel within and between states without the specter of prison, even if they are traveling for a reason other people disagree with.”
Heipt said the plaintiffs, the Indigenous Idaho Alliance and the Northwest Abortion Access Fund, should be allowed to give money and other assistance to help underage girls in Idaho travel to other states for abortions.
Also part of the lawsuit is Idaho lawyer Lourdes Matsumoto who primarily works with abuse victims. According to Boise State Public Radio, she claimed the law restricts her free speech, and does not include allowances for complex situations such as cases involving immigrant minors who do not live with their parents or domestic abuse.
“[The law] criminalizes only speech that supports those seeking abortion care,” the lawsuit states. “Under the First Amendment, the ‘government has no power to restrict expression because of its message, its ideas, its subject matter, or its content.’”
Matsumoto and the pro-abortion groups asked U.S. District Judge Debora K. Grasham to issue a temporary injunction that blocks the state from enforcing the law while their case moves forward.
Since the law passed in April, pro-abortion activists have been making wildly false claims about it. One Democrat strategist even falsely asserted that the law prohibits all pregnant women from leaving the state of Idaho.
But the Idaho law does not ban interstate travel any more than kidnapping laws do. Rather, it protects young girls from being taken, potentially by force or coercion, to another state to have her unborn baby aborted. Abusers and human traffickers often rely on abortion to cover up their crimes.
To protect young girls and their babies, the Idaho law creates a crime called “abortion trafficking,” which prohibits an “adult who, with the intent to conceal an abortion from the parents or guardian of a pregnant, unemancipated minor, either procures an abortion … or obtains an abortion-inducing drug” for the minor. Because Idaho protects unborn babies by banning elective abortions, the only way an underage girl could get a legal abortion would be to be taken to another state.
Anyone found guilty of trafficking a teenager for an out-of-state abortion would face up to five years in prison.
Jennifer Popik, J.D., federal legislative director at National Right to Life, explained more about the law in a recent article at the Society of St. Sebastian:
The plain language of the bill says nothing about crossing state lines. Nor does it prevent a minor herself from crossing a state line. It simply prevents an adult from transporting a minor within Idaho for the purpose of obtaining an abortion with the intent to conceal it from her parents. The law also prevents an adult from assisting in procuring an illegal abortion within the state, for example, by obtaining and providing her with chemical abortion drugs within the state.
Further, neither this particular law nor the pro-life movement is attempting to punish a woman or girl. Neither the Idaho law nor any other proposed piece of legislation is attempting to punish or prevent a woman or minor themselves from traveling.
