By Brendan Pierson
(Reuters) – Idaho will ask a federal appeals court on Tuesday to reinstate a 2023 law making it a crime to help a minor cross state lines to have an abortion without parental consent, making it a crime which a judge blocked in November.
A three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Seattle will hear the case challenging the law brought by Lourdes Matsumoto, an attorney who works with victims of sexual violence, and the Northwest Abortion Access Fund and the Indigenous Idaho Alliance which helps Idahoans access abortion.
U.S. Magistrate Judge Debora Grasham in Boise ruled in a preliminary order that the law signed by Republican Gov. Brad Little a little more than a year ago violated the plaintiffs’ rights to free speech and expression under the First Amendment of the United States Constitution.
The judge also found that the law is unclear on what constitutes illegal trafficking in abortions.
Idaho argued that the plaintiffs have no legal standing to challenge the law because they have no concrete plans to violate it, and that the state “has every right to protect parents’ rights to be present at a critical time for their children. “
Idaho bans almost all abortions, with few exceptions to save the mother’s life and in cases of rape or incest reported to police. However, it borders Washington, Oregon, and Montana, which allow it.
Like other conservative jurisdictions, Idaho has sought to prevent its residents from traveling elsewhere to obtain abortions.
Under the law, adults who help girls obtain a surgical or medical abortion without parental consent face a minimum of two years in prison if convicted.
The plaintiffs said that in addition to violating their First Amendment rights, the law interfered with Idaho citizens’ constitutional right to travel interstate.
The case is one of several tough laws that criminalize helping residents travel to states where abortion is legal. In 2022, the United States Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, the landmark 1973 decision that established a national right to abortion.
A group of Alabama health care providers and a fund that helps state residents filed lawsuits last year to prevent anyone from being prosecuted under state law for helping a person to travel out of state to obtain an abortion. The state’s Republican attorney general had suggested that Alabama residents who did so could be prosecuted for criminal conspiracy.
The U.S. Department of Justice filed a statement in November supporting the lawsuits, saying the Constitution protects the right to travel for an abortion.
(Reporting by Brendan Pierson in New York; editing by Alexia Garamfalvi and Richard Chang)
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