Pregnant women may receive abortions in many cases if there are serious risks to their health or if there’s a high risk she will harm herself, an Idaho federal judge has ruled.
The decision, released Thursday, marks a major change to the Idaho abortion ban’s exemptions. The judge determined U.S. constitutional protections under the Due Process and Equal Protection clauses of the 14th Amendment “establish a narrow but fundamental right to abortion when a pregnancy threatens the woman’s life or health.”
U.S. District Court of Idaho Judge B. Lynn Winmill in his 81-page decision blocked the Idaho attorney general or Ada County prosecutor from enforcing Idaho’s criminal laws that prohibit providing abortions in narrow cases to protect the mother’s health.
“By banning health-preserving abortion, Idaho attempts to deny this fundamental right on the basis that the threat of harm comes from a fetus, which depends on the woman for survival,” Winmill wrote. “But a pregnant woman’s health is not a state resource to be allocated at the legislature’s whim. The Fourteenth Amendment exists precisely to prevent subjugation like this.”
His ruling largely favored the protections sought by Dr. Stacy Seyb, a Boise maternal-fetal medicine specialist, who challenged the state’s laws.
The Idaho Family Policy Center, a Christian political advocacy group that opposes abortion, denounced the decision in a press release Thursday. The policy center helped author Idaho’s civil enforcement abortion law, which allows family members of an aborted fetus to sue the abortion provider for a minimum of $20,000.
“It’s important to recognize that the civil cause of action in the Heartbeat law still remains in effect — meaning that any physician who performs an abortion that is prohibited by the Heartbeat law can still be liable for breaking the law,” policy center President Blaine Conzatti wrote in the press release. “And doctors should take note: The IFPC Legal Center stands ready to hold doctors accountable who illegally perform abortions.”
Conzatti wrote that he expects the decision to be overturned, arguing that the U.S. Constitution does not protect abortions for mental health reasons.
Idaho’s criminal abortion ban allows abortion to prevent the death of the mother, to treat ectopic or molar pregnancies, and in cases of rape and incest in the first trimester, if there’s been a police report filed. Doctors who provide abortions that don’t fall within those exceptions face two to five years in prison and revocation of their medical license.
A voter-led initiative will appear on November ballots this year that, if approved, would overturn Idaho’s abortion ban and enumerate protections to women’s reproductive healthcare and privacy into law.
Winmill wrote in his decision that Idaho may still ban abortion in some cases that may be “troubling,” but that did not violate the Constitution.
“For Idahoans who oppose this law, the solution lies at the ballot box rather than the courthouse,” he said.
How does the ruling affect abortions related to mental health?
Idaho’s criminal ban states that abortions are not allowed to “prevent the death of the pregnant woman because the physician believes that the woman may or will take action to harm herself.”
Winmill said the state’s law treated people with severe mental health risks differently than those with physical health complications.
“The brain is an organ of the body, and healthcare providers use empirical tools to reliably assess the risk of suicidality and the most effective treatments,” he wrote. “It is an affront to human dignity to bar pregnant women from receiving life-saving care on the basis that the threat comes from a mental health condition rather than a physical health condition.”
How does the ruling affect fetal diagnoses?
Under his ruling, pregnant mothers who receive a diagnosis that their fetus is unlikely to survive to term or unlikely to survive long after birth may only receive an abortion if that diagnosis also puts the mother’s health at risk.
Women who receive a life-limiting fetal diagnosis that does not threaten their health, are still prohibited from receiving an abortion in Idaho, the judge ruled. Abortion would also still not be allowed in cases where there is a diagnosis of a significant disability, he wrote.
“Some may find the law cruel,” the judge wrote. “And the Court fully understands and appreciates that sentiment. Pregnant women faced with a devastating fetal diagnosis must either bear the challenges of pregnancy while waiting to watch their child die or flee the state to receive appropriate medical care.”
“Although some women may certainly wish to continue the pregnancy,” he continued. “And one might conclude that Idaho regards women in this latter category more as incubators for a fetus who will not survive than as human beings with the capacity to make an extraordinarily difficult decision about their bodies and their families. But the Court’s role here is not to express its personal judgment of the wisdom of the legislature’s decision.”
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