By Raúl Labrador
If you listen to the Proposition 1 ads, you would think Idaho law has no exceptions. You would think the exceptions do not work. You would think women are dying in Idaho hospitals because doctors are too afraid to treat them.
None of those claims are true.
Idaho’s law is clear. We want to save the mother, and we want to save the child. When a pregnancy puts a mother’s life in jeopardy, Idaho law allows her doctor to act. The law does not tell a doctor to wait until a woman is at the moment of death. It says that if a doctor has a good faith belief that her condition can lead to her death, he can perform an abortion. The Idaho Supreme Court clarified this standard in 2023 when it declared there is no immediacy requirement. A doctor does not have to believe the mother will die tomorrow or in the next few hours. If her condition may lead to her death, they can treat her now.
So why are some doctors confused about the law? Because they refuse to study the law. Do not take my word for it. Take the word of the doctor who sued the State of Idaho claiming that Idaho law prevented him from providing proper care to his patients. We asked him under oath whether he had read the law before he sent pregnant women out of state. He testified he had not. Whether he asked a lawyer to explain it to him? The answer was no. Whether he read the Idaho Supreme Court’s decision explaining the law? Also, no. He sued the state of Idaho claiming our law did not allow him to care for his patients, and he had never bothered to learn what the law allows.
Most Idaho doctors understand the law. Some have told us they wish it were more permissive. That is an honest policy disagreement. But a doctor who refused to read the law is not proof the law is impossible to understand and follow.
Now consider what Proposition 1 proponents claim Idaho law does and what it actually does. Its sponsors say it simply restores Roe v. Wade. That is not true.
Under Roe, abortion was allowed until viability, the point when a child can survive outside the womb. Proposition 1 rewrites that definition. Under Prop 1, a child is not viable until he or she can survive outside the womb “without extraordinary medical measures.” The initiative never defines that phrase. The sponsors say that definition reflects the medical community’s standards. It does not. In fact, the phrase is borrowed from California’s abortion law, which never defines it. A child who needs a feeding tube or a ventilator may or may not count as viable at all, because the initiative never says whether that care is “extraordinary.” Even under Roe, the viability of that child was clear.
Another problem created by Prop 1 is that it makes it clear that if the language of the proposition conflicts with any other law in Idaho, Prop 1 trumps other Idaho laws. For example, there has been a debate about parental consent because the sponsors say Prop 1 leaves that portion of Idaho law untouched. It is true that the initiative does not directly repeal parental consent. What it does is create an expansive new right of abortion that overrides every other Idaho law, leaving the question for a judge to decide later. You know there will be lawsuits over whether parental rights still exist in Idaho. If that right is found to be in conflict with the expansive right to abortion, a judge will rule that Prop 1 supersedes existing parental rights. The sponsors were warned about this potential conflict before submitting the initiative and chose not to fix it. That tells you everything you need to know about their intent.
Finally, and most problematic, the sponsors say they only want to insert a health exception into Idaho law. Please ask what “health” means to the people who will interpret it. The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists has indicated there is no such thing as an elective abortion under their definition of health, and that ALL abortions are medically indicated. If every abortion is medically indicated, then a health exception is not a limit at all. It is abortion on demand, which is their ultimate goal.
Idaho’s current law protects unborn life, with exceptions for reported rape, incest, and the life of the mother. Proposition 1 would replace that law with something far more extreme, written in words so broad that its own sponsors cannot define its central terms.
I oppose Proposition 1 because it is too extreme for Idaho. Read it for yourself, and join me in voting NO on November 3rd.
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About Raúl Labrador
Raúl Labrador is the 33rd Attorney General of Idaho. The Office of the Attorney General provides legal representation for the State of Idaho. This representation is furnished to state agencies, offices and boards in the furtherance of the state's legal interests. The office is part of state government’s executive branch and its duties are laid out in the Idaho Constitution.
