In quest to destroy reproductive health, Idaho lawmakers have stopped representing Idaho

Idaho’s legislative majorities — a collection of pretend doctors, pretend public health officials and pretend leaders — are officially out of control.

Last year, the Legislature tested the waters of extremism through unconstitutional attacks on transgender people, people of color and women. This year, it seems like they’ve embraced full-blown radicalism with reckless abandon.

As the country tries to dig itself out of the global pandemic and deadly transfer of power made worse by hyperpartisan politics, Idaho is digging itself even deeper. Despite overwhelming public testimony against them from all angles, politicians in the majority have pushed legally dubious bans on reproductive health care choice, bodily autonomy, education and abortion. While these attacks are par for the course in the Idaho Legislature, their overwhelming support for such bills, coupled with the offensive language and twisted logic, mean that legislators are no longer hiding their disdain for their constituents, nor are they masking their malicious intent.

Idaho’s legislators have lost any notion of what “common sense” means. A prime example of sensible and popular legislation was Senate Bill 1098, a bill that would allow patients to get up to a year’s worth of birth control at a time should their health care provider prescribe it. This simply eliminates the need for people to do monthly runs to the pharmacy for a prescription that, if missed, could result in an unintended pregnancy. But for the third year in a row, the Idaho Legislature killed the bill.

The reason? House representatives cited concerns about overdosing (not medically possible with birth control) and placing the rights of health insurance companies (that did not object to this bill) above those of individual Idahoans. It was not hard to see their actual thinking — they simply don’t trust people who can get pregnant to have control over their own bodies.

Meanwhile, the House advanced a bill they openly didn’t understand, recognizing only that it would bring harm to Planned Parenthood’s patients. House Bill 220, a bill to cut off publicly funded services such as sexually transmitted infections testing, cancer screenings, birth control and more, to abortion providers elicited questions about how many abortions would be prevented by the bill (none), whether the bill would codify legal abortion for Idaho (it wouldn’t) and whether abortions are provided by non-Planned Parenthood providers (they are). It is already prohibited for public money to fund abortion, a point the bill sponsor pleaded with his colleagues to understand. This is clearly an attack on Planned Parenthood based on the supposed far-right ideology of “personal liberty” — unless it conflicts with legislators’ personal beliefs.

Then, in a show reminiscent of last year’s attempt to legislate transgender people out of existence, the House pushed forward House Bill 249, a bill that would make access to medically accurate, age-appropriate sex education in our public schools harder for families to access by requiring them to fill out paperwork to participate, rather than the current, untroubled system of opting out if they don’t like it.

Lawmakers admitted the bill makes education harder to access, claiming that medically accurate depictions of transgender people and non-heterosexual sexual orientations are topics young people should be shielded from. The bill’s sponsor declared as the bill passed the floor with no hesitation from Republicans that this bill was supported by Planned Parenthood, calling me out by name, making this personal. Because it is personal. It isn’t about Idaho education or values or family — it’s about political squabbles.

The facade of caring about women in particular slipped recently when, while killing a bill to allot a $6 million federal grant to early childhood education, a male lawmaker said “any bill that makes it easier or more convenient for mothers to come out of the home and let others raise their child” is bad. His insincere apology made it clear he was only sorry people were mad and still holds his belief that women belong in the kitchen with the children.

There is a theme that ties these actions together. Legislators’ disdain for women and families, LGBTQ+ people and Planned Parenthood supersedes their claim to love liberty, their supposed respect for the state Constitution and their professed deference to their constituents’ needs and advocacy. Their motivation is not to represent their people in The People’s House, but rather to remain laser-focused on making unconstitutional grabs at power for themselves.

This comes at a cost. Idaho is one of two states with a Constitutional Defense Fund that is used to pay for legal fees and settlements. Many of these bills will be challenged in court, and Idaho taxpayers will foot the bill. Legislators have voted to replenish the fund instead of spending money on relief efforts at a time when Idahoans are struggling most.

The American people are demanding an end to our deeply divided politics. We demand a working government that represents our diversity and complexity and values the nuances of proposed legislation and their potential outcomes. We demand Idaho’s legislators start behaving as though they represent us, the people, rather than only themselves and their own power-hungry ambitions.