‘How dare you?’ Idaho anti-abortion PAC texts initiative signers to reconsider
Shana Tremaine received a text message from an Idaho area code Wednesday afternoon letting her know she may have made a mistake — and that made her angry.
The text said Tremaine may have been “misled” when she recently signed the Reproductive Freedom and Privacy Act Initiative, a ballot initiative that would allow Idaho voters this November to choose whether to reinstate abortion access and carve out protections for reproductive healthcare including contraception and fertility treatment. The text messages, which social media posts and ballot initiative backers say have been sent to numerous people who signed, said it was paid for by Idaho Chooses Life, a political action committee that advocates against abortion.
“My first thought was, ‘How dare you?’ ” Tremaine, a Nampa resident, told the Idaho Statesman in an interview. “How dare you insinuate that I don’t know what I signed?”
Tremaine said the text included disinformation about the ballot initiative and instructed recipients to ask to have their names removed from the petition.
Idaho Chooses Life Executive Director David Ripley did not respond to a request for comment.
Melanie Folwell, executive director of Idahoans United for Women and Families, the nonprofit behind the initiative, told the Statesman last week that organizers are “confident” they’ve qualified the initiative to appear on the general election ballot. To qualify, initiatives must have 6% of the total registered voters at the time of the last general election, or about 70,700 signatures. Those signatures must be distributed from around the state and include at least 6% of voters in 18 of the state’s 35 legislative districts.
Folwell said Thursday that “over 90%” of the more than 100,000 signatures that Idahoans United has gathered have already been verified by county clerks and volunteers have been careful about informing people about exactly what they’re signing.
“We’ve been very, very straightforward with signers about what is in the initiative,” Folwell said. “We are not hiding any ball.”
Initiative supporters say texts contain misinformation
It’s unclear how Idaho Chooses Life identified people who signed the ballot initiative, or how many people the PAC contacted. Folwell told the Statesman that Idahoans United did not collect phone numbers as part of its signature gathering effort, nor would it share signers’ information.
Folwell, who sent an Idahoans United newsletter about the texts on Wednesday night, said Idaho Chooses Life may have sent “thousands.” A post about the texts in an Idaho political Facebook group confirmed more than a dozen people had received the same message Tremaine did.
The messages said the initiative would “legalize abortion through ALL NINE MONTHS of a pregnancy” and “mean parents will no longer have a say over their daughters’ abortion and sexual health.”
If the ballot initiative qualifies to appear before voters and wins a simple majority of the vote, it would legalize abortion until fetal viability — typically around 24 weeks’ gestation — and in cases of medical emergency. The initiative defines that as a situation where abortion is necessary to protect the pregnant person’s life, or when delaying care could impair their health, bodily function or organs.
The initiative does not address healthcare for minors, but Idaho law requires parental consent for the vast majority of minors’ treatments.
“Our policy is a restoration to the Roe (v. Wade) standard, and so they are ginning up false claims about the initiative to freak people out and try to get them to decline to sign or remove their names,” Folwell said.
Idaho implemented strict abortion restrictions in 2022 when the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. The court’s decision set off “trigger laws” including the Idaho Defense of Life Act — which Idaho Chooses Life executive director Ripley helped draft and advocated for in the Legislature.
“I think that it’s important to understand the source, to understand where these texts are coming from, and who they’re coming from,” Folwell said. “(Ripley) is the guy that brought us the ban, and he will say and do anything to keep it, even at the expense of women’s health and lives, even at the expense of our dignity and privacy, even at the expense of driving every doctor from the state.”
Text campaign met with interest, ire
Folwell said the campaigns from Idaho Chooses Life — which also included postcards — and other groups critical of the effort may not be having the desired effect. Instead of scaring potential signers away or prompting some to remove their signatures, she said, they have alerted some people of the ballot initiative’s existence.
“We had people give the postcards to our door knockers and say: ‘I waited around for you today. I was hoping you would knock on my door,’ “ Folwell said.
For Tremaine, the recent text message only raised ire. She said it felt invasive and unwelcome, and she resented the implication that she was uninformed on the issue.
“How dare you try to make me feel uninformed or stupid?” she said. “This is part of their agenda, to make you feel guilty, to make you feel unsure.”
It did spur her to act on one thing — she made a donation to Planned Parenthood in Ripley’s name.
