Advocates Challenge State Law Against Taking A Minor To Get An Abortion Behind Their Parents’ Back
Kate Anderson on July 11, 2023
Abortion advocates filed a lawsuit against Idaho Attorney General Raúl Labrador Tuesday in an attempt to strike down a law that requires a parent’s consent before a child can obtain an abortion, according to a press release.
Legal Voice (LV) filed the lawsuit on behalf of Indigenous Idaho Alliance (IIA), a nonprofit that helps minors get abortions, the Northwest Abortion Access Fund (NAAF) and Lourdes Matsumoto, an attorney who specializes in working with victims of sexual abuse, according to KFF Health News. LV is challenging a new law passed in May that bars minors from getting abortions in another state unless they have parental consent, claiming that it violates the First and Fourteenth Amendments, according to the press release.
“Idaho’s law is the first time a state has tried to criminalize the right to travel for health care. It is unconstitutional to forbid citizens from traveling because you disapprove of the reasons they are driving to another state,” Wendy Heipt, LV’s senior Reproductive Health and Justice Counsel, said in the press release. “Idahoans, like all people, should be free to travel within and between states without the specter of prison. Even if they are traveling for a reason other people disagree with. If this stands, what is next?”
In Idaho, abortions are banned at all stages of pregnancy except for limited cases when it is necessary to save the life of the mother or because of rape or incest, according to CNN. The new law, passed this year, further limited the practice by banning “abortion trafficking,” when a child under the age of 18 is given abortion pills or taken to another state to obtain an abortion without parental consent, which is punishable by a minimum of two years in prison, according to the legislation.
Republican state Rep. Barbara Ehardt of Idaho Falls, the author of the bill, argued that the legislation was necessary to prevent criminals from sexually assaulting children and then covering it up by forcing them to get an abortion.
“I don’t think any of us want to see our minors, not only trafficked, but in this situation,” Ehardt said.
However, Megan Kovacs, a NAAF board member, said in the press release that “young people” need access to abortions “whether Idaho lawmakers like it or not” and argued that minors don’t always have supportive parents who would help them get the health care to support their “bodily autonomy.” Tai Simpson, an IIA organizer, also said in the press release that IIA’s mission is to combat policies that “inhibit the sovereign rights of Indigenous people in Idaho.”
“This means taking a stand for the right to access medical care when, for so many centuries of settler-colonization, we have been denied the ability to move across our usual and accustomed territory for any reason,” Simpson said. “Interrupting the access to healthcare for our Indigenous women is especially egregious because of our cultural and social practices as a matriarchy. Women are to be revered and honored, not infringed upon, or dehumanized.”
Labrador and LV did not immediately respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment.
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