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U.S.|Judge’s Ruling Expands Medical Exceptions in Idaho Abortion Ban
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/12/us/idaho-abortion-medical-ban-exceptions-ruling.html
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In situations where a mother faces risk of death, the decision allows for abortions even when death isn’t imminent.
April 12, 2025, 5:38 p.m. ET
A state judge in Idaho appeared to slightly broaden access to abortion there by ruling on Friday that an exception to the state’s ban does not require the woman to be facing impending death.
Idaho’s ban, one of the strictest in the nation, prohibits abortion in almost all cases. One exception is when it is necessary to prevent the death of the pregnant woman. Judge Jason D. Scott ruled that abortions are allowed if a doctor deems that the woman is likely to die sooner without an abortion than she would otherwise — even if her death “is neither imminent nor assured.”
The ruling, which kept the law in place, handed a partial victory to reproductive rights advocates and Idaho doctors who said the ban had forced them to wait for patients to reach the brink of death before they could act, or rush them out of state to get care elsewhere.
“I feel very reassured” by the ruling, said Dr. Emily Corrigan, an Idaho obstetrician-gynecologist who is one of the plaintiffs. “I think there’s many, many more case scenarios where the patient’s condition would squarely fall within that exception.”
Idaho’s attorney general, Raúl Labrador, who was one of the defendants, said in a statement that Idaho law has never required doctors to wait until a woman’s death is certain or imminent before providing an abortion. “While we still disagree with portions of the ruling, it confirms what my office has argued in courts from Boise to Washington, D.C. — that Idaho’s abortion laws are constitutional and protect both unborn children and their mothers,” he said.
It was unclear on Saturday whether his office would appeal the decision.
The Idaho judgment arose from a lawsuit filed in September 2023 by the Center for Reproductive Rights on behalf of four women who said they had to leave the state to receive abortions after learning that they faced serious health risks or that their fetuses would not survive. The suit was joined by Dr. Corrigan, another physician and a family physicians’ organization.
