Idaho court allows abortions for maternal health, mental issues

A federal judge in Idaho on Thursday ruled to allow abortions in the state in certain cases for the health of the mother.  The state’s law previously protected unborn children from abortions with only one exception: When abortion was deemed necessary to prevent the death of the mother. Thursday’s federal ruling permitted abortions in cases where pregnancy could cause serious, lasting harm to the mother, or when doctors deem the abortion necessary to prevent her death by suicide. The ruling did not mention an unborn child’s gestational age when carving out the new exceptions to the law, meaning that such abortions can likely be carried out at any stage of pregnancy.

The Idaho Right to Life organization and the state attorney general’s office did not publicly react to the ruling by Friday morning.

Judge B. Lynn Winmill ruled that a mother’s suicidal intent could be a basis for an abortion, arguing that such conditions could be objectively diagnosed and shouldn’t be treated differently from a physical ailment. He also cited gestational diabetes and preeclampsia as examples of maternal health conditions that could make a woman eligible for an abortion. Winmill did not discuss the option of early delivery rather than abortion to address such health problems. He cited a study concluding that abortions are safer than childbirth as a basis for his decision.

Pro-life advocates have disputed that study, pointing to others that used different datasets and came to the opposite conclusion.

Winmill’s opinion noted that ordinary risks and burdens of pregnancy aren’t enough to warrant an abortion. He also stressed that his ruling didn’t conflict with the Supreme Court’s Dobbs ruling, which revoked a constitutional right to abortion.

An Idaho maternal-fetal medicine specialist, Dr. Stacy Seyb, initially brought the lawsuit after referring several of his patients with pregnancy complications for abortions in other states. The judge rejected some of his arguments, ruling that abortions could not be carried out based solely on an unborn child’s genetic condition or to reduce the number of unborn children in the womb.

Dig deeper: Read my report on an unusual surrogacy dispute involving a baby with a rare heart defect.