An Idaho judge on Friday denied a request from the state's top legal chief to dismiss a lawsuit seeking to clarify exemptions hidden in the state's broad abortion ban.
Instead, 4th District Judge Jason Scott limited the case to focus only on the circumstances in which abortion would be permitted and whether emergency abortion care applies to Idaho's constitutional right to enjoy life and defense, and to the right to security.
Scott's decision comes just two weeks after a hearing in which Idaho Attorney General Raul Labrador's office attempted to dismiss the case, led by four women and several doctors who filed the case earlier this year.
Similar lawsuits are playing out across the country, with some, like Idaho's, brought by the Center for Reproductive Rights on behalf of doctors and pregnant people who were denied access to abortions while dealing with serious pregnancy complications.
According to the Center for Reproductive Rights, Idaho's constitution entitles its residents to certain fundamental rights, but a sweeping abortion ban puts those rights at risk.
Labrador's office countered that the Idaho Supreme Court has already upheld the state's abortion bans — resolving any lingering questions about the issue.
Scott agreed in part with state attorneys that the state Supreme Court ruled that there is no fundamental right to abortion under the state Constitution, but added that the court did not “reject every conceivable as applied challenge that might be raised in a future case submitted. ”
“We are grateful that the court saw through the state's callous attempt to ignore the pain and suffering their laws cause Idahoans,” said Gail Deady, senior attorney at the Center for Reproductive Rights. “Now the state of Idaho will be forced to hold these women accountable in court.”
Meanwhile, the Idaho judge also sided with the attorney general in removing Governor Brad Little, Labrador and the Idaho Board of Medicine as defendants in the lawsuit, leaving the state of Idaho as the sole remaining defendant. Scott called the long list of defendants “redundant” and said all three would be subject to whatever is ultimately decided in the lawsuit.
“This is just the beginning of this lawsuit, but the Attorney General is encouraged by this ruling,” Labrador's office said in a statement. “He has long maintained that the named defendants were simply inappropriate, and that our passed laws do not violate the Idaho Constitution by narrowly restricting abortions or interfering with a physician's right to practice medicine.”
The four women named in the case were all denied abortions in Idaho after learning they were pregnant with fetuses that were unlikely to be carried to term or survive birth, and that the pregnancies also put them at risk of serious medical complications brought with them. All four traveled to Oregon or Washington for the procedures.
Idaho has several abortion bans, but Idaho lawmakers notably passed a ban as a trigger law in March 2020, before the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade.
At the time, any suggestion that the ban could harm pregnant people was quickly dismissed by the bill's sponsor, Republican Senator Todd Lakey, who said during a debate that the mother's health “yes, weighs less than the life of the mother.” the mother'. child.”
The trigger ban went into effect in 2022. Since then, the number of obstetricians and other pregnancy-related specialists in Idaho has dwindled.