In his concurring opinion on Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh wrote that the right to interstate travel is constitutionally protected. Idaho Republicans are working on finding a way around that, at least for minors. They’re creating a whole new crime: “abortion trafficking.”
An “adult who, with the intent to conceal an abortion from the parents or guardian of a pregnant, unemancipated minor, either procures an abortion … or obtains an abortion-inducing drug for the pregnant minor to use for an abortion by recruiting, harboring, or transporting the pregnant minor within this state commits the crime of abortion trafficking,” according to the bill.
Curious term, that. Human trafficking, according to the Department of Homeland Security, “involves the use of force, fraud, or coercion to obtain some type of labor or commercial sex act.” But Idaho Republicans are slapping the word “trafficking” onto an older friend or sibling who helps a teenager scared to tell her parents she’s pregnant get medical care, and they’re making it a felony punishable by two to five years in prison.
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The interesting runaround here is that they’re not criminalizing the crossing of a state line. The “abortion trafficking” could be something like offering a safe place to self-manage a medication abortion. Parents are allowed to help their teens get abortions—by leaving Idaho, because there’s no legal way to get an abortion in Idaho—but in a minority of cases, teenagers have very good reason not to tell their parents they are pregnant or getting an abortion. In some of those cases, the reasons involve real danger.
Here’s what the medical experts have to say about this:
The American Medical Association, the Society for Adolescent Health and Medicine, the American Public Health Association, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, the AAP, and other health professional organizations have reached a consensus that a minor should not be compelled or required to involve her parents in her decision to obtain an abortion, although she should be encouraged to discuss the pregnancy with her parents and/or other responsible adults. These conclusions result from objective analyses of current data, which indicate that legislation mandating parental involvement does not achieve the intended benefit of promoting family communication but does increase the risk of harm to the adolescent by delaying access to appropriate medical care or increasing the rate of unwanted births.
But whatever, as long as it prevents an abortion.
The Republicans passing the law are “going to say what they’re doing is just criminalizing actions that take place completely within Idaho, but in practice what they’re criminalizing is the person helping the minor,” David Cohen, a Drexel University law professor who litigates abortion-related cases with the Women’s Law Project, told HuffPost. Cohen predicted that Idaho would be the first of many states to pass similar laws—and indeed, the Idaho bill is heavily based on a model bill offered by the National Right to Life Committee.
The Idaho bill has passed the state House once and is up for a vote in the state Senate, where Democrats hold just 7 out of 35 seats. Once it passes the Senate, it will go back to the House for one final vote, before going to anti-abortion Gov. Brad Little for his signature.
No matter how bad things are now, Republicans are always determined to make them worse.
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