Idaho abortion ruling brings clarity, but legislation still needed | Opinion

June 24 marked the three-year anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision, which turned the clocks back on abortion rights by 50 years and turned decisions about abortion over to the states — and politicians.

In Idaho, that meant a law that allows abortion only “to prevent the death of the pregnant woman” went into effect.

That caused a tremendous amount of trepidation among doctors, who felt they could provide an abortion only if the pregnant woman’s death was imminent or certain without an abortion. It precluded a whole host of medical conditions and circumstances in which the mother’s health could be affected gravely, with death a possibility.

That led to patients having to seek care out of the state — even being airlifted to get care — and nearly one-quarter of Idaho’s OB-GYNs leaving Idaho.

Fortunately, a ruling in April in Adkins v. Idaho provides more clarity and should provide relief for Idaho’s physicians and their pregnant patients when it comes to providing an abortion in cases of medical conditions that put the mother’s health at risk.

In his ruling, Fourth District Judge Jason Scott did an admirable job of clarifying the circumstances under which a doctor in Idaho may provide an abortion, ruling that the procedure is allowed to prevent death if there’s a non-negligible risk of the patient dying sooner, even if death isn’t imminent or certain.

His ruling included several specific medical conditions that could shorten a woman’s lifespan, such as hypertension, cardiac disease, diabetes and cancer.

This should provide broad latitude for doctors and their patients in seeking care without fear of prosecution.

But we can understand how doctors and patients might still feel nervous about abortions in a state like Idaho, where one legislator, Sen. Todd Lakey, R-Nampa, explicitly said the health of the mother “weighs less, yes, than the life of the child,” referring to a fetus.

Scott, in his ruling, seemed to address this head-on.

“Indeed, even a modest likelihood that a pregnant woman will die without abortion care is a huge risk to take with her life,” he wrote, “which the legislature surely didn’t intend to deem less worthy of protection than the fetal life growing in her uterus.”

We think the ruling is clear and specific enough to provide protections to doctors and their patients.

Idaho abortion legislation still needed

But it would be much better if the Republican-dominated Legislature fixed its law to ensure that protection.

Physicians and health care providers need to be able to rely on clear language. Idaho Attorney General Raul Labrador has made the specious argument that the law was clear all along and there’s no need for doctors to fear prosecution.

Nevertheless, Labrador wouldn’t be the one bringing criminal charges against a doctor; it would be a local prosecuting attorney.

And just the threat of charges has a chilling effect on doctors seeking to provide medical care for their patients.

It’s up to the Legislature to fix the language in the bill.

Unfortunately, it seems Republicans listen to just one voice: David Ripley of Idaho Chooses Life, an anti-abortion rights absolutist political action committee that endorses candidates. His beliefs seem to matter more than the expertise of hundreds of highly trained medical professionals who understand the complexities and see that it’s not a simple binary option.

Idaho voters’ position on abortion

In standing by Idaho’s strict abortion ban and refusing to fix it, Republican legislators also seem to be ignoring you, the voters.

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 an Idaho Statesman poll done in late 2022.

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 2025 showed 64% of Idahoans favored exceptions that also include the health of the mother and nonviable pregnancies.

Clearly, there’s a disconnect between what Republican legislators are doing and what voters want.

And when that happens, you know what to do: Vote them out of office. Especially if they arrive at the Statehouse next year and try to make a strict abortion ban even stricter.