Idaho’s abortion initiative steps in when Republican legislators fail to listen | Opinion

What happens when the Idaho Legislature represents a minority of Idahoans?

You get a citizens initiative.

It happened with Medicaid expansion, which saw 61% of Idaho voters do what Idaho legislators refused to do for years.

It happened with public education funding, with an initiative that forced Idaho’s Republican majority to preemptively increase funding in a special session.

It’s happening this year with the Open Primaries Initiative, which seeks to make Idaho’s elections more representative.

When the Legislature fails to act, the citizens are compelled to step in.

Such is the case with Idaho’s unreasonably restrictive abortion ban, which allows an abortion only when the life of the mother — but not the health of the mother – is at risk, and in cases of rape or incest, but with conditions so restrictive, it often renders the exceptions useless.

A group called Idahoans United for Women and Families announced Thursday that it has begun the process to put a citizens initiative on the ballot in 2026 to change Idaho’s abortion ban, which went into effect by a trigger law when the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade and turned decisions about abortion back to the states.

Idaho would follow several other states that have put the abortion issue before voters — and those states have so far all restored or protected reproductive health care rights.

The reason Idaho stands at this juncture is that over the two years since Idaho’s abortion ban went into effect, we have seen the negative effects it’s had:

• Idaho has lost 22% of its OB/GYNs in the past two years.
• Because of the uncertainty over whether an abortion is allowed to protect the health of the mother, pregnant Idaho women with health complications have had to travel out of state for basic medical care, some via air ambulance.
• Idaho hospitals report having difficulty recruiting doctors to Idaho, a state that already has the nation’s lowest rate of physicians per capita.
• Anecdotally, we have heard that businesses are having difficulty recruiting workers to Idaho, and parents worry about their children staying in Idaho.

Some Idaho legislators who voted for the trigger law in 2020 have admitted they didn’t think it would ever go into effect, and some have admitted they didn’t know what the effects were going to be.

State Rep. John Vander Woude, who co-sponsored Idaho’s trigger ban, told NBC News that he and other Republican legislators did not foresee all the ripple effects of the law.

For two years, groups of well-meaning and thoughtful citizens, doctors and medical groups have been trying to work with the Idaho Legislature to at least provide for exceptions for the health of the mother — not just when the life of the mother is in imminent danger.

To no avail.

Idaho’s Republican legislators won’t listen to the concerns and the real-life problems being experienced by everyday Idahoans. They dismiss the concerns as overblown or, in mind-boggling fashion, simply made up.

Idaho’s Republicans are likely afraid of getting a more radical challenger in the next primary and being attacked by groups of anti-abortion absolutists such as Idaho Chooses Life, a political action committee that espouses an extremist position on abortion shared by only a small minority of Idahoans, according to recent polls.

Only 6% of Idahoans said abortion should be illegal with the only exception being to save the life of the mother, and 7% said it should be illegal in all situations, according to a recent Idaho Statesman poll.

That same poll showed 26% of Idahoans said they believe abortion should be legal in all cases and another 25% said abortion should be legal with some limitations.

The annual Idaho Public Policy Survey in 2023 showed 58% of Idahoans favored changing Idaho’s existing abortion law.

Meanwhile, a poll by Idahoans United for Women and Families in 2022 showed that 63% of Idahoans believe that abortion should be legal in some or almost all cases.

The ultimate poll, though, would be a vote of the people in November 2026.

With Idaho’s Republican legislators listening to only a small percentage of loud Idahoans, a citizens initiative is the only way to truly have representative government.

This story was originally published August 15, 2024 at 9:20 AM.