Idaho Gov. Brad Little signed a new anti-abortion law Wednesday that will prevent adults from transporting minors out of state to get an abortion without a parent’s consent.
The law’s Republican authors named such actions “abortion trafficking.”
Abortion is already illegal in Idaho in all cases except rape, incest or if a pregnant person’s life is in danger. However, abortion remains legal in the neighboring states of Washington, Oregon, Nevada and Montana.
Idaho’s newest anti-abortion law focuses on a very specific scenario and criminalizes very specific actions. Any non-parental adult who “obtains an abortion-inducing drug” or is found to be “recruiting, harboring, or transporting the pregnant minor” within the state for an abortion will have violated the law if they did not obtain permission from the minor’s parent beforehand.
“It is something that, unfortunately, is happening,” State Rep. Barbara Ehardt (R-Idaho Falls) said in February, according to the Idaho Statesman. She did not provide any evidence for that claim.
To get around constitutional protections, only the part of a trip that happens within Idaho is illegal under the new law.
The law, the first of its kind nationwide, is expected to face legal challenges.
“This legislation is despicable, and we’re going to do everything in our power to stop it,” Planned Parenthood Alliance Advocates West said after Little signed the bill into law. “Idaho lawmakers have slipped under the radar with some of the strictest anti-abortion laws in the country. Now, they’re using an incredibly serious term like trafficking to talk about young people traveling with trusted adults to access a legal procedure in another state.”
Anyone convicted of abortion trafficking will face between two and five years in state prison. Various people, including the parents of a minor, will also be allowed to sue in civil court.