A state judge in Idaho appeared to slightly broaden access to abortion there by ruling on Friday that an exception to the state’s ban does not require the woman to be facing impending death.
Idaho’s ban, one of the strictest in the nation, prohibits abortion in almost all cases. One exception is when it is necessary to prevent the death of the pregnant woman. Judge Jason D. Scott ruled that abortions are allowed if a doctor deems that the woman is likely to die sooner without an abortion than she would otherwise — even if her death “is neither imminent nor assured.”
The ruling, which kept the law in place, handed a partial victory to reproductive rights advocates and Idaho doctors who said the ban had forced them to wait for patients to reach the brink of death before they could act, or rush them out of state to get care elsewhere.
“I feel very reassured” by the ruling, said Dr. Emily Corrigan, an Idaho obstetrician-gynecologist who is one of the plaintiffs. “I think there’s many, many more case scenarios where the patient’s condition would squarely fall within that exception.”
Idaho’s attorney general, Raúl Labrador, who was one of the defendants, said in a statement that Idaho law has never required doctors to wait until a woman’s death is certain or imminent before providing an abortion. “While we still disagree with portions of the ruling, it confirms what my office has argued in courts from Boise to Washington, D.C. — that Idaho’s abortion laws are constitutional and protect both unborn children and their mothers,” he said.
It was unclear on Saturday whether his office would appeal the decision.
The Idaho judgment arose from a lawsuit filed in September 2023 by the Center for Reproductive Rights on behalf of four women who said they had to leave the state to receive abortions after learning that they faced serious health risks or that their fetuses would not survive. The suit was joined by Dr. Corrigan, another physician and a family physicians’ organization.
The plaintiffs argued that state law should permit abortions in cases where continuing a pregnancy is unsafe or where the fetus has been diagnosed with a fatal condition.
Judge Scott of Idaho’s Fourth District did not go as far as the plaintiffs wanted, rejecting the claim that abortions should be allowed when a fetus won’t survive.
But he found that doctors may provide an abortion when, in their medical judgment, a patient “faces a non-negligible risk of dying sooner without an abortion,” even if death is not certain or immediate. The exception does not apply when that risk arises from potential self-harm, the judge ruled.
The lead plaintiff, Jennifer Adkins, 33, was 12 weeks pregnant with her second child when doctors told her the fetus had a rare genetic condition that carried a high mortality rate and that her pregnancy was probably nonviable. Doctors said that if Ms. Adkins did not miscarry, she would be at high risk of developing a life-threatening condition called mirror syndrome. Ms. Adkins, who lives in Caldwell, Idaho, near Boise, ultimately traveled 400 miles to Portland, Ore., for an abortion.
She said in an interview that she believed the judge’s ruling would have allowed her to get care in her home state.
“Having to go through something like that and lose a baby that you really, really wanted, in a place full of strangers, not surrounded by family and friends and providers that you know and trust, it was incredibly challenging, and it was incredibly sad,” she said.
In a separate case filed soon after the Supreme Court overturned the national right to abortion in 2022, the Biden administration sued Idaho over its abortion ban, arguing that the ban’s strict limits violated a federal law that requires hospitals to provide emergency care, including abortions, to any patient.
Idaho argued that its ban complied with the federal law, called the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act or EMTALA. Last year, the Supreme Court handed a temporary victory to the Biden administration, returning the case to a lower court that had put the ban on hold. But under the Trump administration, the Justice Department dropped the lawsuit, clearing the way for the ban to take effect in full.
In a similar lawsuit filed by St. Luke’s Health System, the largest hospital system in the state, a federal judge issued an order last month shielding its doctors from prosecution if they provided abortions in emergencies.
Dr. Corrigan said Friday’s ruling offers clarity to physicians statewide.
While the ruling applies only in Idaho, abortion-rights advocates said it illustrated the need for clearer and broader exemptions in other states that strictly ban abortion.
“The problem, whether you’re in Idaho or Texas or any of the other states that have a serious abortion ban, physicians are very conservative and very litigation-averse, very risk-averse,” said Laura Hermer, a professor at Mitchell Hamline School of Law whose research focuses on reproductive rights. “The states are trying assiduously to put the onus of this burden on health care providers.”
Many abortion opponents agree with Mr. Labrador’s contention that the existing exceptions are clear, and that doctors who claim otherwise are misreading the law.
Eleven other states ban abortion in almost all circumstances. Legal efforts to broaden the exemptions in those states have seen mixed results.
The Texas Supreme Court rejected a lawsuit that sought to expand exceptions for medical emergencies in the state, finding that the law already allowed abortions for women facing life-threatening conditions, “before death or serious physical impairment are imminent.”
In Tennessee, a lawsuit similar to the one in Idaho is pending.
