Idaho legislators are considering a bill that would make it illegal for an adult to assist a minor in getting an abortion without parental consent. Predictably, those who advocate for as many abortions as possible to be performed are up in arms.
House Bill 242 would prohibit adults from obtaining abortion pills for a minor. It also would ban “recruiting, harboring, or transporting the pregnant minor” across state lines for the procedure.
Violators of the proposed law would face up to five years in prison.
Clearly, parental rights are the main focus of the bill. Republican state Rep. Kevin Andrus told the Associated Press that “we want to make sure that parents have a say in the life choices of their children.”
He added, “it will do a lot to save lives.” The latest figures from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention gathered in 2019, showed that about one in eight abortions in Idaho were obtained by minors.
A bill that would criminalize helping minors obtain an abortion without parental consent won final passage in Idaho's legislature on Thursday and is headed to the desk of Republican Gov. Brad Little. https://t.co/d9jel03fiV
— NEWSMAX (@NEWSMAX) March 31, 2023
This concern, of course, was not enough to pacify radical abortion supporters. Andrea Miller, president of the National Institute for Reproductive Health, lamented the bill would create a “chilling effect” if it is passed into law.
She claimed, “this would mean people who might otherwise be really important supporters would ask, ‘Can I be the supported auntie or sister or friend in a situation where I want to be a support to this person?”
Note that Miller left parents out of her equation.
The anti-abortion Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America organization had a different take on Idaho’s proposed legislation. Spokesperson Kelsey Pritchard believes other states will follow Idaho’s lead and that it is important to protect parents’ role in abortion decisions.
She explained, “That kind of proposal is definitely something that states should be looking at. Idaho’s kind of thinking ahead here.”
The floodgates for new state regulations opened last year when the U.S. Supreme Court finally overturned Roe v. Wade. This led to a flurry of states, Idaho included, strictly controlling or banning the procedure outright, which was exactly what the high court majority ruled as constitutional.
And while leftists rant about restrictions on travel, the proposed Idaho law as written will not accomplish that. Rather, it will keep parents in the know about their minors’ medical decisions and protect their roles in the family.
