(Oregon Right to Life) — Idaho can once again enforce its abortion trafficking law that protects minors from being transported to states like Oregon for abortions, thanks to a Monday decision by a federal court.
The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals handed down its decision on December 2, reversing a 2023 decision by U.S. Magistrate Judge Debora K. Grasham that temporarily barred the state from enforcing its pro-life protection. Idaho’s law prohibits “recruiting, harboring or transporting” a pregnant, underage girl to help her get an abortion without the permission of her parents or legal guardians.
Idaho may enforce most of its abortion trafficking law thanks to the federal court’s Monday decision. However, the Ninth Circuit agreed with Grasham that the language banning “recruiting” a pregnant minor was overly broad.
RELATED: National Right to Life Files Brief Supporting Idaho’s Pro-Life Law
“We are grateful for the Ninth Circuit Court’s decision, and for Idaho Right to Life’s diligence in supporting this pro-life law,” Oregon Right to Life Executive Director Lois Anderson said. “In our post-Dobbs era, Idaho’s law allows the state to protect young girls from being trafficked into Oregon for abortions, where Planned Parenthood abortion facilities are seeking to lure them.”
“The decision is a victory for the unborn, for keeping young girls safe, and for reducing the harm that Planned Parenthood and other abortion facilities are allowed to do here in Oregon,” Anderson said.
Carol Tobias, president of National Right to Life (NRLC), said in a Wednesday press release that “Idaho’s law protects minors from those who would circumvent parental rights by transporting a minor girl within the state to obtain an abortion. This law protects both the unborn child and her mother.”
According to the NRLC statement, “Idaho’s law is based on National Right to Life’s model law.” NRLC extended its congratulations to Right to Life Idaho, an affiliate of NRLC, “for its work and efforts in seeing the law passed and upheld.”
In a statement emailed to Oregon Public Broadcasting, Idaho’s Republican Attorney General Raúl Labrador said “Idaho’s laws were passed specifically to protect the life of the unborn and the life of the mother.”
”Trafficking a minor child for an abortion without parental consent puts both in grave danger, and we will not stop protecting life in Idaho,” Labrador said.
RELATED: WATCH: Which State Bans Emergency Pregnancy Care?
The Monday decision comes after a 2023 report that an abortion facility in Bend, Oregon reportedly performed an abortion for a 15-year-old girl who had been taken to Oregon from Idaho by her 18-year-old boyfriend and his mother. The girl was reportedly “happy” with the pregnancy, though her boyfriend was not. The boyfriend has since been charged with rape, and he and his mother were charged with second-degree kidnapping.
Coercion is very often behind the decision to abort, a fact that cuts directly against the abortion industry’s false claims that access to abortion is about “choice” and bodily autonomy. According to a survey published in the medical journal Cureus, 43% of women who reported having had an abortion said the procedure was “accepted but inconsistent with their values and preferences,” while 24% said the abortion was “unwanted or coerced.”
Regardless, abortion facilities in eastern Oregon have capitalized on an increase in what’s colloquially known as “abortion tourism” from Idaho and other pro-life states into Oregon following the 2022 U.S. Supreme Court Dobbs decision and subsequent implementation of statewide pro-life laws.
According to the Oregon Health Authority, abortion tourism increased dramatically in 2023, with 1,661 abortions performed for women who traveled to Oregon from out of state compared to 1,036 in 2022 – a 60% increase. Planned Parenthood’s new facility in Ontario has become a particular destination for abortion-minded women from Eastern Oregon and Idaho: 381 of the 427 abortions performed in Malheur County last year were for out-of-state residents.
READ: Late-Term Abortions More Than Doubled In 2023, Oregon Health Authority Data Shows
In addition to its law banning the trafficking of minors for abortion, Idaho law protects nearly all unborn lives from the moment of conception, with exceptions for rape, incest, and the life of the mother. Meanwhile, abortion is legal in Oregon throughout pregnancy, up to the moment of birth, for any reason. Girls as young as 15 can obtain abortions in the state without parental consent.
