(LifeSiteNews) — An Idaho ballot initiative to decriminalize abortion in the state gained the necessary signatures to qualify for the November ballot. The “Reproductive Freedom and Privacy Act” was introduced by the pro-abortion group, Idahoans United for Women and Families, as a way of combating the state’s trigger ban that resulted from the overturn of Roe v. Wade.
“For nearly 50 years, Idahoans had the personal liberty to make private medical decisions — including regulated access to abortion — with their doctors, not politicians,” the ballot initiative website states. “This initiative would restore the personal liberty to make one’s own reproductive healthcare decisions — including birth control, IVF, regulated abortion access, and more — with their doctor WITHOUT undue government overreach.”
While most abortions are banned throughout the state, abortions are allowed in the circumstances of rape and incest, with the law being upheld by a 2023 Idaho Supreme Court decision. Justice Robyn Brody emphasized that the Idaho state constitution does not include a “fundamental right” to abortion.
“The relevant history and traditions of Idaho show abortion was viewed as an immoral act and treated as a crime,” Brody wrote. “We emphasize that all we are deciding today is that the Idaho Constitution, as it currently stands, does not include a fundamental right to abortion.”
The new bill not only calls for overturning this decision but proposes allowing abortion up to fetal viability, typically around 23 weeks of gestational age when a baby is able to survive outside the womb. The bill website explains this as the “Roe Standard,” which the state had held previously. “It’s the standard we had in Idaho for nearly 50 years (also known as the “Roe Standard”) and means decriminalized abortion up to fetal viability and past that in cases of medical emergency or fatal fetal diagnosis.”
The bill joins other efforts by progressive groups in Idaho to challenge the abortion ban, including those brought by The Satanic Temple. In March 2025, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals heard arguments from the group that alleged the abortion ban violates their First Amendment right of performing their “Satanic Abortion Ritual.”
The ritual was described as “to cast off notions of guilt, shame, and mental discomfort that a patient may be experiencing due to choosing to have a legal and medically safe abortion.”