Abortion bill back, with trims

BOISE – A lawmaker who wants to require minor girls to inform their parents before they can get abortions says he’s stripped his proposal of provisions that tripped up a 2005 law in the federal courts, costing Idaho hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal fees.

Sen. Russ Fulcher, R-Meridian, told the Senate State Affairs Committee on Friday he dumped elements that U.S. District Judge B. Lynn Winmill ruled had an unconstitutional chilling effect on a girl’s right to an abortion.

In seven years, abortion-related legislation has cost Idaho more than $730,000. That included a $380,000 award last April to Planned Parenthood of Idaho to pay attorney fees in the group’s successful challenge of the 2005 law.

Fulcher said he based his new bill on an Arizona “parental consent” abortion law because it has withstood a federal-court challenge.

Anti-abortion groups said Fulcher’s legislation is a long time coming.

“It’s unconscionable to deprive teenage girls of the counsel of their parents when they are considering a life-altering decision,” said Bryan Fischer, director of the Idaho Values Alliance.

Abortion-rights groups said they hadn’t yet read Fulcher’s bill, but oppose parental-consent mandates.

“It endangers young women,” said Marty Durand, of the Idaho Women’s Network. “They’re entitled to a safe abortion. By putting up hurdles, you increase the likelihood they’ll seek out an unsafe procedure.”

Fulcher’s bill includes several exceptions allowing a so-called judicial bypass of the parental-consent requirement. Parental consent isn’t required if a judge rules a girl is mature enough to make her own decision; if the judge thinks an abortion is in her best interest; if the pregnancy is the result of a rape; or if it’s a medical emergency.

Winmill ruled Idaho’s 2005 law ran afoul of the Constitution’s guarantee of abortion rights based on the U.S. Supreme Court’s 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling for two reasons.

First, if a girl sought to have an abortion without telling her parents, the law required her court-appointed guardian to report crimes related to the pregnancy.

In Idaho, a 1921 law says even consensual sex between unmarried adults is illegal. That means anyone under 18 who reported becoming pregnant through consensual sex could expose herself or her sex partner to prosecution, Winmill ruled, saying that could have a “chilling effect” on her decision to have an abortion.

In addition, the 2005 law required doctors to tell a girl’s parents after performing a medical-emergency abortion. Winmill ruled that was also unconstitutional.

Both provisions have been dumped from the new proposal, Fulcher said.

“We’ve given up that ground,” he said.

Because of the rising legal costs of abortion legislation to the state, lawmakers last year adopted a heightened standard for abortion-related bills: Attorney General Lawrence Wasden’s office must give its seal of approval before the measures get a hearing.

Deputy attorney general Bill von Tagen on Friday told the State Affairs Committee that Fulcher’s bill would likely withstand scrutiny.

If Fulcher’s law passes, the state will ask the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to end an ongoing appeal the state has lodged over Winmill’s decision on the 2005 law.