Federal court rules Idaho can enforce law banning interstate travel for abortions

Nearly two years after it was first proposed by Republican lawmakers, an Idaho law that, as one human rights advocate put it, essentially “locks up” people in the state to deter them from seeking abortion care was allowed to die Monday after a Federal law comes into force ruling of the appeals court.

The Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that Idaho can prohibit people from “accommodating or transporting” a minor who needs to leave the state to have an abortion, which is still legal in the surrounding states of Oregon, Washington and Montana.

The law, originally proposed as House Bill 242, would make the so-called crime of “abortion trafficking” punishable by two to five years in prison, even if the pregnant person has an abortion in a state where the procedure is legal.

The law was blocked entirely in late 2023 by a judge who found it violated First Amendment rights because it also included a ban on “recruiting” teenagers for abortion care across state lines.

The appeals court found Monday that the “recruitment” portion of the law actually violates the constitutional right to free speech because it can be applied to anything “from encouragement, advice and emotional support; to educate about available medical services and reproductive health care; on public advocacy to promote abortion care and access to abortion.”

“Encouragement, advice and emotional support are clearly protected speech under Supreme Court precedent,” Justice M. Margaret McKeown, an appointee of former Democratic President Bill Clinton, wrote in the majority opinion.

Wendy Heipt, an attorney representing the Northwest Abortion Access Fund and the Indigenous Idaho Alliance and an attorney who sued the state over the law, said the “recruitment” portion of the ruling was a “significant victory for the Plaintiff.” as it gives Idahoans the freedom to discuss abortion health care with pregnant minors.”

But Jessica Valenti, an author and advocate who writes the Substack newsletter Abortion, every daysaid efforts to make travel for abortion care a crime “should be in the headlines.” every single day.”

“If lawmakers tried to detain men in states where they couldn’t get health care, we would never see an end to it,” Valenti wrote.

Republicans in Idaho have pushed for a bill that would “prevent adults from taking minors across state lines for abortions without parental permission,” Valenti added. “In fact, the law criminalizes assisting a teenager in obtaining an abortion, in any form, anywhere.”

She went on to say that the ban’s “blanket language” could result in someone being sent to prison as a “dealer” for lending gas money to a teenager.

“That, of course, is the point: Republicans want to intimidate anyone who might provide teenagers with access to abortion — be it a beloved grandmother or a local abortion fund,” Valenti wrote. “They target the helpers.”

Republicans in Tennessee also passed an “abortion trafficking” law, but its enforcement was blocked by a court in September. U.S. District Judge Aleta Trauger wrote that the state “chose to prohibit certain abortion-promoting communications that are in fact illegal and completely legal.”

“It is therefore a fundamental constitutional fact – which Tennessee cannot help but accept – that as long as there are states where abortion is permitted, abortion will potentially be available to Tennesseans,” Trauger added.

Republicans in Mississippi, Alabama and Oklahoma have introduced similar legislation, while Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall has suggested states restrict travel by pregnant residents.

Valenti wrote that Monday’s decision is “not just about Idaho” and that laws banning travel for abortion care “will not stop at teenagers.”

“Young people are the canaries in the coal mine,” she wrote. “What happens to them today affects us all tomorrow.”