A Closer Look at Idaho Chooses Life

Idaho Chooses Life (ICL) claims to be a leading voice of the pre-born child in Idaho and has raised hundreds of thousands of dollars from well meaning Christians concerned about the holocaust of abortion in our society. However, their pattern of endorsements and donations — especially a recent contribution to a senator who voted against banning child gender mutilation — raise serious questions about how they use that money.

According to its website, ICL’s “sole objective is to provide accurate information and resources to mothers, families, health organizations, and elected officials to help them preserve the sanctity of life.”

It goes on to say that ICL was “founded as a political action committee in 1996 to support pro-Life candidates for public office and to lobby for preborn children at the Idaho Legislature.”

As a political action committee (PAC), ICL endorses candidates for office, donating to those candidates as well as engaging in independent expenditures on their behalf.

I have been curious about ICL’s endorsement and donation process for several years. During the 2022 primary, I interviewed six candidates for the two House seats in LD14. I came away believing all six were firmly anti-abortion, yet ICL endorsed and donated to two — then Rep. Gayann DeMordaunt and Ted Hill. I can understand why they chose DeMordaunt, as she was the incumbent and had a record of supporting pro-life legislation, but why did they pick one of four in the race for the open seat? Did they believe that Hill was destined to win, so they wanted to get behind him?

While that merely raised an eyebrow, it inspired me to dig deeper. ICL donated $500 chunks to dozens of legislative candidates in 2022, almost entirely incumbents. Some, like Reps. DeMordaunt, Brent Crane, and Julianne Young had solid pro-life records, but others seemed shakier. For example, ICL supported then Rep. Greg Chaney, who was running for Senate in LD11, despite Chaney debating against a resolution calling on the Supreme Court to overturn Roe v. Wade just one month prior.

ICL went on to endorse and donate to statewide candidates as well. They supported Scott Bedke for lieutenant governor, despite Priscilla Giddings being equally if not more dedicated to the pro-life cause. Not only did they endorse Bedke, they spent money attacking Giddings for voting against the abortion trigger bill in 2020. However, if you go back and watch the debate, Giddings and fellow representative Heather Scott debated against the bill because they thought it didn’t go far enough.

Good people can disagree on the best strategy for ending abortion, but it is absolutely dishonest to say that Priscilla Giddings is in any way not pro-life.

ICL trumpeted the passage of the trigger bill at the time, dismissing concerns about codifying exceptions and not having any force of law until Roe was overturned:

“Some in the pro-Life movement have sought to impede this legislation, arguing that it doesn’t really do anything. We beg to differ… SB1385 contains narrow exceptions to protect the life of the mother, as well as abortions in cases of rape and incest. Many pro-Lifers are opposed to the latter exceptions – and for good reason.  Babies conceived by rape are no less human, no less valuable than babies conceived in less violent circumstances.  Yet, to save those babies, it is necessary to first change the current paradigm.  We must re-establish the value of human life; and SB1385 does that.”

However, when the Idaho Family Policy Center (IFPC) sponsored a heartbeat bill in 2021 and strengthened it in 2022 with a private cause of action, ICL and its supporters dismissed the idea, saying it would never hold up in court and that it would hurt the pro-life cause. Remember that this was prior to the Supreme Court overturning Roe, so at the time the heartbeat bill was actually stronger than the trigger bill. ICL does not have anything on its blog about that legislation, but they denounced Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis for signing a heartbeat bill in 2023 for some of the same exceptions they defended in 2020.

It looks to me like ICL supports the legislators who support its bills, without regard for the rest of their voting records. However, if a lawmaker supported a different pro-life bill, such as the heartbeat bill championed by the IFPC, then ICL has no problem attacking them, no matter how mendaciously.

The organization also supported Brad Little for governor, Debbie Critchfield for superintendent, and Mary Souza for secretary of state. That last one was really odd to me, because what does that office have to do with abortion? I recall posing that question to Kelly Walton, then a board member of Idaho Chooses Life Alliance Inc., and he said it was because they wanted to see less stringent campaign finance reporting requirements.

So much for ICL’s “sole objective” being the sanctity of life.

Earlier this year, ICL founder and executive director David Ripley testified in favor of a bill to automatically enroll pregnant women on Medicaid into an additional year of Medicaid Expansion. He cited the biblical mandate to care for widows and orphans as a reason to support this socialist program, and agreed that being “pro-life” meant caring for people after they were born.

If that is Ripley’s standard, then it raises questions about many of ICL’s endorsements and donations. Days ago, the organization gave $1,000 donations to six legislative candidates: Incumbent Sens. Carl Bjerke, Chuck Winder, and Treg Bernt, incumbent Reps. Julianne Young and Jason Monks, and former representative and current candidate for Canyon County prosecutor Greg Chaney.

Last month, former ICL board member Kelly Walton contributed $5,000 to the organization, which could account for most of these new contributions. Walton has long been a defender of establishment politicians on social media. A current board member is Tom Loertscher, a former state representative who refused to take no for an answer when he was defeated in the primary by Chad Christensen. Loertscher is also a signatory to a letter seeking to raise funds to take control of the Idaho GOP state central committee, alongside Tom Luna, Trent Clark, and Patti Ann Lodge.

Like Giddings and Scott, Christensen is 100% pro life, but ICL nevertheless lamented Loertscher’s primary loss in 2018 and said that Planned Parenthood LGBT activists were “dancing around the golden calf” in celebration. ICL mailed flyers to Loertscher’s district supporting his sore loser write-in campaign.

Greg Chaney, as mentioned above, debated against a resolution calling on the Supreme Court to overturn Roe v. Wade, which was long stated as the goal of the pro-life movement. His opponent in the race for Canyon County prosecutor is current Adams County prosecuting attorney Christopher Boyd, whose own pro-life credentials are untarnished.

During a candidate forum in Caldwell last night, Chaney boasted about defending the Idaho Dept. of Health and Welfare pro bono when Attorney General Raúl Labrador investigated them for misusing public funds which the Legislature appropriated for K-12 programs. IDHW allegedly diverted these funds to organizations teaching woke social justice ideas to pre-K children in direct violation of legislative intent. Is this what David Ripley and ICL support?

The donation to Sen. Bernt is even more troubling. Last year, Bernt voted against House Bill 71, banning child gender mutilation using drugs or surgeries. If David Ripley’s philosophy is that pro-life values extend to using tax dollars to support pregnant women, then how does that square with supporting a legislator who supports allowing children to be drugged and mutilated in the name of a radical gender ideology?

Four years ago, ICL blogged against Justice Neil Gorsuch’s decision in Bostock v. Clayton County that the Civil Rights Act applied to people identifying as transgender. Has David Ripley changed his position on the transgender issue since then?

Bernt’s opponent, Brenda Bourn, appears to be fully pro-life. Even notwithstanding Bernt’s vote against H71, what does ICL gain by helping a first-term legislator defeat someone who is equally or more pro-life? You would think it would be a wash, and they could better allocate their money elsewhere.

In 2022, ICL endorsed Debbie Critchfield for state superintendent. In doing so, David Ripley said, “Most Idahoans are concerned about the radical agendas at work across our society seeking to undermine family values by sexualizing children at ever younger ages.”

Again, how does this square with supporting a legislator who refused to take a stand against child gender mutilation? Additionally, many ICL-endorsed lawmakers opposed the various bills designed to protect children from harmful sexual materials in schools and libraries. Sen. Bernt was one of only four Republicans in the Senate to vote against House Bill 710 earlier this month.

None of this makes any sense if you take ICL at its word that its “sole objective” is to promote the sanctity of life. Is there a simpler explanation?

If the purpose of a system is what it does, then it appears the purpose of Idaho Chooses Life is to funnel money from pro-life Christians to establishment politicians. If you look at ICL’s Sunshine report you’ll see a lot of politicians who donate to Idaho Chooses Life end up receiving donations back from the organization. Are ICL’s endorsements for sale? Is that the price David Ripley pays to get a seat at the table? Is it a strategic decision to support the establishment so that they will occasionally vote for a pro-life bill?

I understand how single issue organizations work. If you’re laser-focused on bills related to abortion it can make strategic sense to ignore other issues. Yet how does it make sense to stand up for the unborn if you’re just going to let them be groomed, drugged, and mutilated after birth?

With Roe v. Wade consigned to the dustbin of history and Idaho having banned abortions (both the trigger bill and the heartbeat bill were upheld in the State Supreme Court) what becomes of organizations like Idaho Chooses Life? We can already see mission creep in Ripley supporting the expansion of welfare for pregnant women. ICL has a solid machine in place to raise money from churchgoers and pro-life conservatives, so it would be a shame to just shut it down, right? According to the Sunshine report, ICL has nearly $70,000 cash on hand.

None of this is to question Ripley’s belief in the pro-life cause. He seems sincere in that. However, it is clear to me that ICL has drifted significantly from its mission of championing the unborn.

I have long been frustrated with what I’ve seen from Idaho Chooses Life, but when I saw the donation to Sen. Bernt this week I felt compelled to write about it. That $1,000 they gave his campaign came from faithful men and women who fervently believe in the cause of life and want to see abortion ended in America. Those men and women surely expected their money to be used to promote laws that support not only the right of unborn children to life, but the safety and sanctity of childhood in a world gone mad.

It’s time for faithful donors to Idaho Chooses Life to start asking some tough questions, and it’s time for David Ripley to answer them.

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