Senate panel hears anti-abortion legislation that’s likely unconstitutional

This morning, the Senate State Affairs Committee is in the Capitol Auditorium, holding a hearing on SB 1165, Sen. Chuck Winder’s bill to ban abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy, based on new but disputed research showing fetuses feel pain at that point. “What we’re trying to accomplish here is to establis the state’s interest, through scientific testimony, as to the impact of elective abortion on an unborn child from 20 weeks on.,” Winder told the committee as the hearing opened. “The bill’s intent is obviously to eliminate elective abortions that will occur.”

An Idaho Attorney General’s opinion on the bill, requested by Winder, found that it’s likely unconstitutional: “Certain aspects of the proposed legislation likely would require an extension or modification of that precedent to be held constitutional,” wrote Steven L. Olsen, chief of the civil litigation division. When Winder, in a follow-up request, asked if the U.S. Supreme Court “might vote to uphold” if the attorney general were to “conscientiously defend i,” Olsen, in a follow-up advisory opinion, declined to speculate. “We have concluded it is not possible to evaluate with any measure of certainty whether a majority of the Supreme Court would uphold the proposed legislation if asked,” he wrote.