Abortion Could Become Issue Again In ‘98 After Recovering From 1990 Losses, Republicans May Be Ready For New Debate

Idaho’s abortion laws have remained essentially unchanged since a political donnybrook in 1990 that culminated with a very restrictive abortion bill being vetoed by then-Gov. Cecil Andrus.

So why the push in recent weeks to make abortion a big issue in the legislative session opening next month?

It looks like politics - an effort to force every lawmaker to come down on one side or the other on one of the most emotional issues around in advance of the 1998 election.

Abortion was THE issue seven years ago.

In the aftermath of the Andrus veto of what would have been the nation’s most restrictive abortion law, Democrats made large gains at the polls that fall, at least in part because of the abortion issue. Andrus won a landslide re-election, the party claimed both congressional seats and won more legislative seats than it had in a generation.

The state Senate was plunged into a 21-21 tie.

Since then, the dreaded “A” word has been absent from the Statehouse, by design. In the three elections since, Republicans have won overwhelming victories, more than recovering from the losses of 1990 to make Idaho one of the strongest GOP states in the country.

Through those years, House Speaker Michael Simpson was among legislative leaders convinced that nothing good would come from a new debate on abortion and advised people not to bring it up.

But this year may be different. Simpson won’t run for another term as House speaker, opting instead to try for the GOP nomination for the 2nd District congressional seat Michael Crapo is giving up to run for the U.S. Senate.

After six years as House speaker, Simpson is considered the early frontrunner. And almost as soon as he announced for the Republican primary, Simpson came under attack for his views on abortion.

State Sen. Stan Hawkins, the Ucon conservative who also is eyeing the 2nd District Republican primary in five months, criticized Simpson for voting against HB625.

Simpson says it’s ridiculous to try to categorize him as “pro-choice” or “anti-abortion” based on a single vote which he says was based on advice that the bill was unconstitutional.

But he says he’s open to legislative action on other abortion issues - such as requiring notification of parents before a minor can get an abortion, notification of a spouse or even an explicit statement that abortion cannot be used for birth control.

As for partial-birth abortions, Simpson says there’s little need to address that issue because the state already has restrictions on late-term abortions.

The Idaho Christian Coalition took Simpson’s remarks as permission to push those issues in the upcoming legislative session.

The coalition’s Nancy Bloomer said Simpson is the most powerful member of the House and decides, in large part, which bills can or cannot come up for a floor vote. She said she hopes he will use that influence to allow a floor vote on abortion issues.

But once the Legislature starts working on abortion bills, legislative leaders may not be able to limit what is introduced.

Late in the last session, Rep. John Tippets, R-Bennington, was circulating a bill containing criminal penalties and possible professional sanctions against doctors who perform abortions without first providing the patient with material strongly arguing against abortion.

It began to rekindle, in a large conservative bloc, the kind of emotion that drove the 1990 bill through both the House and Senate, overshadowing every other issue. The debate included descriptions of a normal fetus at two-week intervals and descriptions of the procedures used for abortions.

Sixty-one of the 105 members of today’s Legislature were not in office seven years ago and did not go through the intense debate or its political aftermath. And for many, the intervening years were devoid of a debate extremely important to them.

The upcoming election-year session finally could fill that void.