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Idaho voters rejected a citizen-led ballot initiative to roll back the state’s near-total prohibition on abortion, keeping in place one of the most restrictive abortion laws in the country.
Proposition 1, the Reproductive Freedom and Privacy Act, failed by a vote of 56% to 44% with 95% of the vote counted. The Associated Press called the race at 2:35 a.m. Wednesday.
Idaho’s abortion prohibition has been at the center of some of the most high-profile abortion-related conflicts since the Supreme Court overturned federal abortion protections under Roe v. Wade in 2022.
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The state’s abortion law, which took effect immediately after the high court’s Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision, prohibits elective abortion at all stages of pregnancy, with the only exception being to prevent the death of the mother.
Prop 1, which only required a simple majority to pass, was written to legalize abortion through fetal viability, or the point at which a fetus can survive outside of the mother without extraordinary medical intervention.
Unlike the abortion-related ballot measures in other states, Prop 1 is only legislation rather than a constitutional amendment, meaning that an act of the state legislature could repeal it.
Under Prop 1, the state could restrict abortion after viability except under medical emergency, which is defined by the statute as a physical problem that “complicates the physical medical condition of a pregnant patient.” Medical emergencies are “determined on a case-by-case basis” and “on the basis of a physician’s good faith medical judgment.”
The language of the statute has such detailed language about medical emergencies in part because Idaho’s anti-abortion law was the subject of Supreme Court litigation.
The Biden administration sued Idaho in 2022 over its anti-abortion restrictions, claiming the statute’s narrow language about preventing maternal death, as opposed to preserving the mother’s health, violated federal laws requiring emergency medical personnel to provide stabilizing care for patients.
The Supreme Court dismissed the lawsuit in June 2024 on procedural grounds without resolving the core of the legal conflict, temporarily restoring access to emergency abortion procedures while allowing for the lower courts to rule on the merits of the case.
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Gov. Brad Little (R-ID) and Idaho GOP Chairwoman Dorothy Moon, leading up to the vote, called the measure “too extreme for Idaho,” saying it will preempt parental consent laws and other laws establishing safety protocols for abortion.
“I am voting no on Proposition 1,” Little said in a press release in early October. “It would allow girls under 18 to receive abortion without parental consent, and it would make abortion far more accessible in Idaho. Proposition 1 simply goes too far.”
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[ H/T Washington Examiner ]
