BOISE, Idaho — Planned Parenthood Great Northwest filed a petition with the Idaho Supreme Court Wednesday to block the recently signed law banning abortions after six weeks.
The abortion ban, which outlaws abortions after six weeks and allows potential family members to sue the provider, is currently set to go into effect on April 22.
Governor Brad Little signed the bill into law March 23, but wrote in his transmittal letter he has "significant concerns" regarding the law's impact on victims of sexual assault.
"Ultimately, this legislation risks re-traumatizing victims by affording monetary incentives to wrongdoers and family members of the rapists," Little wrote.
The law allows the potential father, grandparents, siblings, aunts and uncles of an unborn baby to sue an abortion provider for a minimum of $20,000 in damages within four years of the abortion. Rapists couldn’t file such a lawsuit, but a rapist’s relatives could.
Idaho is the first state to enact a law similar to the Texas abortion ban and drew criticism from officials across the country, including Vice President Kamala Harris and White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki.
"This law is a cruel overreach by politicians so intent on controlling the lives of their constituents that they’re willing to compromise our constitutional rights and compromise our health and safety, all in order to ban abortion," said Rebecca Gibron, interim CEO of Planned Parenthood Great Northwest, Hawai’i, Alaska, Indiana, Kentucky. "By passing S.B. 1309, these politicians sold their souls to an extremist minority. I want to be clear: We will not allow them to take away our control over our own bodies. We will go to every length to restore Idahoans’ right to abortion."
Read the full lawsuit here:
This story was first reported by Meredith Spelbring at KIVI in Boise, Idaho.
