Idaho Supreme Court to Decide on Abortion Bans
The Idaho Supreme Court will hear arguments today to decide whether two strict abortion laws will go into effect this month.
The court will consider Idaho’s total abortion ban law that was triggered after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade and a “heartbeat bill” that allows families to sue medical providers who perform abortions.
The trigger law prohibits abortion in nearly all cases. While there is an exception for rape and incest, the law requires victims to file a police report and provide that report to a medical provider.
Medical providers could be convicted of a felony and face up to five years in prison if they violate this law. This law was passed in March 2020 and would go into effect Aug. 25.
The court will also consider whether to lift the temporary pause placed on a heartbeat bill. The bill does include exceptions for rape, incest or a medical emergency that would cause death or create serious risk of substantial harm to the mother.
This law allows civil lawsuits to be filed against medical providers who provide abortions after fetal cardiac activity is detected, at about six weeks.
The families of the fetus or embryo who sue medical providers could be awarded at least $20,000 if they win.
Planned Parenthood and one of its abortion providers will argue that both of these laws violate Article 1 of the state’s constitution. Their argument is based on decades of case law in which the Idaho Supreme court upheld the right to decide “whether to procreate” is a fundamental right in the state’s constitution.
During Wednesday’s arguments, lawyers from the state and Planned Parenthood will argue to the court whether to pause the enforcement on the near-total abortion ban and whether to lift the existing pause on the heartbeat bill, set to go into effect immediately.
The court will also decide if the two lawsuits should be consolidated into one case and whether those cases should be transferred to a lower district court for further review.
Planned Parenthood also filed another lawsuit against a “six-week trigger ban” that is set to go into effect Aug. 19. This bill criminalizes abortion after six weeks of pregnancy and would issue a two to five year felony sentence to any person who violates this statute.
The US Department of Justice has also filed its own lawsuit against the state’s trigger law. It argues that the total abortion ban violates the federal Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act (EMTLA) that states hospitals that receive Medicare funds are required to provide necessary emergency medical treatment.
“The suit seeks to hold invalid the state’s criminal prohibition on providing abortions, as applied to women who are suffering medical emergencies,” Garland said in a press conference Tuesday. “Idaho’s law would make it a criminal offense for doctors to provide emergency medical treatment that federal law requires.”
While the law provides an exception in order to prevent the death of a pregnant woman, Garland said “it includes no exception for cases in which the abortion is necessary to prevent serious jeopardy to the woman’s health.”
The Idaho Attorney General called this lawsuit “politically motivated.”
“It’s unfortunate that, instead of sitting down with the State of Idaho to discuss the interplay between its abortion laws and EMTALA, the US Department of Justice has chosen to file a politically motivated lawsuit,” Attorney General Lawrence Wasden said in a statement.
“Instead of complying with the requirements of this provision and reconciling Idaho’s law with EMTALA, or even attempting to engage Idaho in a meaningful dialogue on the issue, the federal government has chosen to waste taxpayer dollars on an unnecessary lawsuit.”