Four women who are suing the state of Idaho after they were denied abortions will testify on Tuesday and Wednesday about their experiences traveling out of state to end nonviable pregnancies. The lawsuit at the center of the upcoming trial in Ada County District Court seeks to clarify the medical exemptions to Idaho’s strict abortion laws. The plaintiffs are the Idaho Academy of Family Physicians, two physicians and the four women testifying this week, who learned while pregnant that their fetuses were unlikely to survive.
The suit, filed last year, argues that the woman suffered “unimaginable tragedy and health risks due to Idaho’s abortion bans,” and that Idaho doctors lack sufficient guidance about when they can perform the procedure without risking jail time. Idaho has two laws restricting abortion : Under the most stringent, it is a felony to terminate a pregnancy at any stage, with limited exceptions, and providers who violate the law face two to five years in prison. A second law allows private citizens to sue health care providers who perform abortions after six weeks of pregnancy.
Neither policy makes an exception for fatal fetal abnormalities, which is a focus of the lawsuit. “We’re not trying to tell Idaho how it has to write its laws. We’re just saying that the laws as written are not working,” said Nick Kabat, an attorney with the Center for Reproductive Rights who is representing the plaintiffs.
Idaho Gov. Brad Little and Idaho Attorney General R.