By Daniel Wiessner
Aug 14 (Reuters) - A U.S. judge has ruled that Idaho's near-total abortion ban is unconstitutional because it provides exceptions when abortions are life-saving and not for broader risks to pregnant women's health.
U.S. District Judge Lynn Winmill in Boise said in an 81-page ruling issued late on Thursday that the right to a health-preserving abortion is protected by the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which guarantees due process and equal protection under the law.
The ruling
is the first by a federal judge to recognize a constitutional right to abortion in certain circumstances since the U.S. Supreme Court in 2022 overturned Roe v. Wade, the 1973 ruling that had legalized abortion nationwide, according to lawyers for the Idaho doctor who sued over the state laws.
LEGAL CHALLENGES TO STATE RESTRICTIONS
Idaho and a dozen other states have banned virtually all abortions since the Supreme Court ruling, and several other states severely restrict them, prompting a series of pending legal challenges. The Supreme Court in 2024 reinstated a decision requiring Idaho to allow abortions when women are having medical emergencies, but did not weigh in on the merits of the case.
Winmill blocked enforcement of two Idaho laws to the extent that they prohibit doctors from providing abortion care to patients with serious medical conditions, including mental health conditions that can raise the risk of self-harm and suicide.
"A pregnant woman's health is not a state resource to be allocated at the legislature’s whim," wrote Winmill, an appointee of Democratic former President Bill Clinton.
Idaho Attorney General Raul Labrador, a Republican, said his office would appeal and was confident the decision would be overturned.
“Judge Winmill ... legislated from the bench and manufactured a new constitutional right to abortion," Labrador said in a statement.
Plaintiff Stacy Seyb, a maternal-fetal medicine specialist, is represented by abortion rights groups Legal Voice and the Lawyering Project, which welcomed the decision in a statement.
"This ruling reduces the risk that pregnant people in Idaho will die or suffer serious injury from preventable causes," said Stephanie Toti, the Lawyering Project's executive director.
The Idaho Family Policy Center, a conservative Christian group that opposes abortion and is not involved in the case, said Idaho's abortion ban broadly remains in effect, including a provision allowing relatives of an aborted fetus to sue abortion providers.
"Any physician who performs an abortion that is prohibited by (Idaho) law can still be liable for breaking the law,” Blaine Conzatti, the group's president, said in a statement.
Winmill declined to block a ban on abortion when a fetus has a life-limiting condition, unless the condition poses a serious threat to the mother's health. He said that while "some may find the law cruel," the Constitution gave state lawmakers the discretion to adopt it.
But the judge said states have for centuries recognized that abortions can be necessary to prevent serious and lasting harm.
“By prohibiting women from obtaining essential medical care when pregnancy poses a severe danger, Idaho contradicts this long tradition and the underlying right to defend oneself from harm," he wrote.
(Reporting by Daniel Wiessner in Albany, New York, Editing by Alexia Garamfalvi and Rod Nickel)
