Idaho's Ridiculous 'Abortion Trafficking' Law Is Back And Microscopically Less Terrible Than Before!

'Abortion trafficking' is not a thing.

Dec 03, 2024

Bad news for Idaho teenagers who don’t have parents they can trust to help them end an unwanted pregnancy.

On Monday, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld most of a grotesque Idaho law that seeks to punish adults who help minors get abortions in other states or procure abortion medication.

This will mean that if a teenager in Idaho gets knocked up and does not have especially understanding parents with whom they feel comfortable discussing this kind of thing, they will have absolutely no other adults they can turn to for help — potentially putting them in serious danger, should they have the kind of parents who might go off the deep end upon finding out that they had premarital sex at all. This puts teens at risk being kicked out of their homes, being forced to go to a maternity home (these still exist, by the way), or even of serious bodily harm.

The law, meant to punish those who engage in “abortion trafficking,” was initially passed during the 2023 legislative session. It held that “an adult who, with the intent to conceal an abortion from the parents or guardian of a pregnant, unemancipated minor, either procures an abortion… or obtains an abortion inducing drug for the pregnant minor to use for an abortion by recruiting, harboring or transporting the pregnant minor within this state commits the crime of abortion trafficking,” and that this could be punished by two to five years in prison.

It was immediately challenged with a lawsuit filed by advocacy groups Northwest Abortion Access Fund and the Indigenous Idaho Alliance, along with Idaho attorney Lourdes Matsumoto, who frequently represents victims of sexual violence.

US Magistrate Judge Debora K. Grasham found in favor of the plaintiffs, on the grounds that the law violated people’s right to freedom of speech, freedom of travel, and freedom of association.

“The state can, and Idaho does, criminalize certain conduct occurring in its own borders such as abortion, kidnapping, and human trafficking,” Grasham said. “What the state cannot do is craft a statute muzzling the speech and expressive activities of a particular viewpoint with which the state disagrees under the guise of parental rights, as Idaho Code Section 18-623 does here.”

But the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals did not agree and reversed the decision on Monday.

On the semi-bright side, the most patently absurd part of the law is not coming back — the part that makes it illegal to “recruit” teens for abortion, which is not a thing outside of the fevered imaginations of people who only watch movies starring Kirk Cameron and legitimately think that abortions are sacrifices to Satan. Planned Parenthood is not setting up shop at high schools, picking random kids out of a crowd and going “Hey! Has anyone ever told you that you could be great at having abortions?” No one is out here trying to convince anyone that doesn’t want an abortion to have an abortion simply because they want there to be more abortions in the world. That is not a thing.

Of course, this is not acknowledged. All that is acknowledged is that it would be a violation of free speech rights — which it would be.

What will stand is the part of the law banning adults from helping minors get abortions in other states or procure drugs meant to induce an abortion.

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“This is a tremendous victory for Idaho and defending the rule of law as written by the people’s representatives,” Idaho Attorney General Raúl Labrador, who will never have to deal with an unwanted pregnancy himself, said in response to the ruling. “Idaho’s laws were passed specifically to protect the life of the unborn and the life of the mother. Trafficking a minor child for an abortion without parental consent puts both in grave danger, and we will not stop protecting life in Idaho.”

It is unclear how these laws protect the life of the mother when the state has been fighting so hard to be allowed to prosecute emergency room doctors for performing emergency abortions to save the life of the mother. Perhaps he means “afterlife”?

Additionally, there’s no such thing as “abortion trafficking,” parents should have zero say in whether or not a minor has an abortion, and helping a minor get a wanted abortion to end an unwanted pregnancy puts exactly no living being in danger.

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