(LifeSiteNews) — The Idaho Supreme Court has approved the finalized ballot language for a referendum asking voters to legalize abortion this fall, explaining the proposal’s ramifications over the objections of the pro-abortion activists behind it.
Most abortions are illegal throughout pregnancy in Idaho, with a trigger ban starting at conception and civil liability law starting at six weeks. Exceptions are permitted for rape, incest, or when allegedly “necessary” to save a mother’s life. Earlier this month, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the state can fully enforce the law, which has been challenged since 2024.
Meanwhile, pro-abortion activists in the Gem State are circulating a ballot initiative to enact a new statute, the “Reproductive Freedom and Privacy Act” (RFPA), that would codify a “right to reproductive freedom and privacy, which is the right to make personal decisions about (so-called) reproductive health care that directly impact the person’s own body,” expressly including abortion.
“Pro-life groups have fundraised over $1.6 million for the fight, and several groups are already pounding the pavement; the abortion activists behind Proposition 1 are close behind with $1.1 million raised thus far, including donations from actors Jamie Lee Curtis and Christopher Guest,” LifeSite’s Jonathon Van Maren has written.
Live Action reports that on September 6, Idaho’s highest court approved the ballot language that will explain to voters the meaning of the initiative, which will only require a majority vote to become law.
“A YES vote would support creating a right to abortion before fetal viability – defined as a fetus’ ability to survive without extraordinary medical measures – and after fetal viability in cases of medical emergency; providing protections against professional discipline and civil and criminal liability for healthcare providers; and codifying a statutory reproductive right to freedom and privacy,” it reads. “A NO vote would support making no change to Idaho’s current law, which preserves the life of preborn children by prohibiting abortion, except when necessary to prevent the death of the pregnant woman, and during the first trimester in documented cases of rape or incest reported to law enforcement.”
Idahoans United for Women and Families, the group behind the initiative, had tried to block the more comprehensive language but was rebuffed on a 4–1 vote. Attorney General Raúl Labrador responded that residents “will see clear and accurate ballot language explaining exactly what Proposition One would do and what a no vote would preserve.”
Lawyers for the pro-abortion group claimed that the new language is an “incomplete and misleading picture of the law that a ‘no’ vote would preserve.”
Thirteen states ban most abortions starting at conception; another five ban it at around six weeks, with additional states imposing a range of later restrictions.
But the abortion lobby works feverishly to preserve abortion “access” via deregulated interstate distribution of abortion pills, legal protection and financial support of interstate abortion travel, constructing new abortion facilities near borders shared by pro-life and pro-abortion states, making liberal states havens for those who want to evade or violate the laws of more pro-life neighbors, and embedding abortion “rights” in state constitutions, whether via activist lawsuits or state constitutional amendments.
In the meantime, four abortion-related ballot initiatives are confirmed to appear on the ballots in this year’s midterm elections.