Latest news with #DefenseofLifeAct
Yahoo
19-03-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
Idaho bill to allow dismissing unfounded abortion lawsuits against doctors heads for amendments
The door to the meeting room for the Senate's State Affairs, Resources and Environment, and Education committees as seen on March 10, 2025, at the Idaho Capitol Building in Boise. (Pat Sutphin for the Idaho Capital Sun) A bill that would outline a process for courts to dismiss unfounded abortion lawsuits brought against Idaho doctors is headed for amendments in the Idaho Senate. Bill cosponsor Sen. Todd Lakey, R-Nampa, said the dismissal process in Senate Bill 1171 is modeled after a recently approved Idaho law that outlines how Idaho judges can quickly dismiss frivolous lawsuits — dubbed strategic lawsuits against public participation, or SLAPP lawsuits. The Senate State Affairs Committee on a unanimous vote Wednesday sent the abortion lawsuit dismissal bill for amendments on the Senate floor, where any state senator can propose amendments to the bill. For two years since Idaho's abortion bans have been in place, Idaho's Republican supermajority-controlled Legislature has waited for lawsuits challenging the bans to resolve before making changes to the state's abortion laws, the Idaho Capital Sun previously reported. Idaho has several abortion ban laws that, if violated, could allow doctors to be prosecuted and lose their medical licenses and even allow them to be sued for at least $20,000 by family members of a person who obtained an abortion. In a survey for Boise State University's annual Idaho Public Policy Survey last year, 64% of Idahoans said the state should at least have exceptions for documented rape cases, incest, non-viable pregnancies and both the life and health of the mother. Idaho's ban contains an exception to save the pregnant patient's life, but not to prevent detrimental health outcomes, including the loss of future fertility, which is a risk with severe infection or bleeding. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX Lakey's abortion lawsuit dismissal bill would only tweak Idaho's civil abortion ban — not the state's criminal ban. He said mostly technical amendments are expected to the bill. 'This doesn't change the state of the law. There are those who would like to do that, but that's not what we're about this morning,' Lakey told the committee. Anti-abortion activist David Ripley, executive director of Idaho Chooses Life, called the bill a good first step. 'This legislation is a result of conversations that I've had with medical providers over the last two years as the Defense of Life Act has taken effect, trying to persuade them that what they've been told and what they've heard in the newspaper and so forth is not an accurate representation of the law,' Ripley testified. David Lehman, a lobbyist representing Bingham Memorial Hospital in Blackfoot, read a statement by doctors who practice obstetrics and gynecology, or OB-GYN, at the rural eastern Idaho hospital. In the statement, the doctors said they entered the OB-GYN field because of their passion for caring for women and their babies. 'None of us at Bingham or in the area choose to perform elective abortions, and haven't throughout our careers. Despite this fact, the actions of the Legislature, with regard to our abortion laws in the last few years, have indeed created unsustainable environments for us to continue caring well for the women and babies of Idaho. It has made hiring new providers nearly impossible. It has increased the pressure, work, anxiety and stress of an already very demanding role. It has eroded the trust we have in the state and our Legislature to work for the good of all Idahoans,' Lehman told the committee. The bill is 'a step in the right direction,' but is not 'a fix to these problems,' he added. SUPPORT: YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE
New York Times
05-03-2025
- Health
- New York Times
Justice Dept. Signals It Will End Challenge to Idaho Abortion Ban
The Justice Department plans to drop a Biden-era challenge to Idaho's law banning abortion in nearly all circumstances, a move that could end access to most abortions for women in the state whose pregnancy poses serious health risks, according to a court filing on Tuesday. The decision represents one of the first major steps under President Trump to roll back former Attorney General Merrick B. Garland's efforts to blunt the impact of the Supreme Court's 2022 ruling overturning Roe v. Wade. The Trump administration plans to 'dismiss its claims in the above case, without prejudice' as early as Wednesday, a lawyer with the department's civil division wrote in an email to lawyers for the state's largest hospital system. The action would effectively lift a federal appellate court's hold on parts of the near-total ban, which was passed by the state's Republican-controlled Legislature in 2020 in anticipation of the nullification of the national right to an abortion. Excerpts from the government's email were included in a request in Federal District Court by the Boise-based St. Luke's Health System for a new temporary freeze to give it time to adjust to the law, which bans all abortions other than those required to prevent a woman's death, or in certain cases of rape or incest. Hospitals in Idaho need the temporary delay 'to train their staff about the change in legal obligations' and to arrange logistics 'to airlift patients out of state' if they require an abortion rendered illegal in Idaho, wrote Wendy J. Olson, a lawyer for the system. Idaho's Defense of Life Act imposes up to five years in prison on anyone who provides an abortion, other than in the limited exemptions. Health providers who violate the law can lose their professional licenses in the state. The Justice Department, under Mr. Garland, sued Idaho in 2022, saying it violated a 1986 federal law that requires hospitals to provide stabilizing medical care in all emergency situations. Historically, that has included providing abortions in the event of severe, but not necessarily life-threatening, emergencies. In June last year, the Supreme Court referred the case back to a federal appeals court, leaving the hold on the ban in place pending the lower court's ruling. 'President Trump has sided with a radical fringe position that would put doctors who act to save the lives of their patients in jail,' Deirdre Schifeling, of the American Civil Liberties Union, said in a statement. 'Women may die because of these actions, and President Trump will be directly responsible.' Mr. Trump, whose appointments to the Supreme Court sealed the fate of Roe, has expressed a wide array of opinions on abortion over the years. In 1999, long before he decided to run for office, he described himself as 'very pro-choice.' But as a candidate and president, he courted anti-abortion activists and cheered the overturning of Roe. He took various stances on the issue in the run-up to the 2024 election, suggesting he would support a nationwide ban on abortions after 15 weeks gestation but saying on other occasions he wanted to leave such decisions to states.
