Barbieri moves to send exchange bill to amending order

After Rep. Cindy Agidius, R-Moscow, asked Rep. Fred Wood about the use of contraceptive drugs Ella and Plan B under a health exchange and whether that might permit drug-induced abortions, Wood said no. Wood said the Idaho attorney general’s office has assured him they “did not feel that there was any loophole in Idaho’s law with respect to abortion at all. We have closed that.” Both those drugs are approved by the FDA for use only as contraceptives, he said, not as abortifacients. “Illegal use of anything, this act doesn’t govern, of course,” Wood said. “The Idaho Statute may and the attorney general may enforce that. But with respect to abortion and with respect to the state of Idaho, the state of Idaho has covered that.”

Rep. Vito Barbieri, R-Dalton Gardens, then moved to send the bill to the House’s amending order, known as General Orders. He also distributed copies of an amendment he’d like to propose with respect to abortion.

Wood spoke against the move. “Mr. Speaker, we all know what happens in General Orders,” Wood said. “Debate is very limited. … General Orders is just a poor place to make public policy on a bill like this.”