Idaho wants abortion law back on books

BOISE – The U.S. Supreme Court was asked Monday to reinstate Idaho’s parental consent abortion law.

State Attorney General Lawrence Wasden filed the petition with the high court after the full 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals refused to reconsider the decision by one of its three-judge panels to throw the 2000 law out.

The bulk of the law had been in effect until Sept. 7, when the appellate court ruling was finalized.

The appellate panel ruled in July that the law’s provisions for emergency abortions for minor girls without parental consent were constitutionally inadequate. While the state has a legitimate interest in regulating those types of abortions, the panel ruled that it did so improperly.

The decision reversed a December 2001 order by U.S. Magistrate Mikel Williams, who upheld key provisions of the law.

Anti-abortion forces had anticipated the appellate ruling and had pressed the state to take the case to the Supreme Court, where they believed the law stood a better chance of approval.

The dispute has created a rift within the anti-abortion movement in Idaho that undermined attempts to pass corrective legislation last winter.

In the original lower court decision, Williams only threw out the law’s restrictions on the courts where minors can go to secure judicial consent when parental consent was not possible.

He also threw out the requirement that parents be notified within 24 hours of an abortion performed under the medical emergency provisions.

But he upheld the law’s medical emergency scheme, ruling that the definition of medical emergency was broad enough to protect constitutional rights.

Williams also said that criminal sanctions against doctors were restricted sufficiently to avoid infringing on their constitutional protections.

But the appellate panel disagreed.

It said there was no reasonable explanation for limiting medical emergency abortions to “sudden and unexpected” instances of physical complications.

Doctors are permitted to perform other procedures on minors in emergencies that do not fit in the category of “sudden and unexpected,” suggesting that the life of a pregnant woman requires a lesser level of protection in case of abortion.

Since medical emergency provisions were integral to the entire law, the court said there was no way to salvage any part of the statute.