Idaho AG Rescinds Legal Opinion That Said Health Care Providers Cant Make Outofstate Abortion Referrals

After a lawsuit over the legal opinion that Idaho's abortion ban prevented health-care workers from sending patients out of state for abortions, the state's attorney general said Friday that she was canceling the test.

Attorney General Raul Labrador said his office's letter "has been misinterpreted as a law enforcement directive directed publicly at local prosecutors and others."

"This was not a government document and was never released by the attorney general's office," he wrote in an email to GOP Rep. Brent Crain, adding, "Therefore, I retract it."

Labrador Crane's original letter last month said the state's near-abortion ban "prohibits Idaho health care providers from sending a woman across state lines for abortion services or from prescribing abortion pills that a woman may receive out of state."

Friday's letter adds new uncertainty to Planned Parenthood Great Northwest's decision to pursue a lawsuit filed Tuesday by two doctors from Hawaii, Alaska, Indiana, Kentucky and Idaho.

U.S. District Judge B. Lynn Winmill said Friday that the withdrawal indicates that "plaintiffs' request for a temporary injunction may be reduced in part or in whole."

Labrador's attorney, Brian Church, told the court that the attorney general's new letter made it seem like his March 27 letter "was never written."

But that has not allayed concerns raised by the plaintiffs' attorney, who told Winmill he was not ready to withdraw a motion for a temporary restraining order that would allow the state to implement the directive in a short period of time. before the process begins.

“I mean, Mr. Church was very careful about what he could say and what he couldn't say. And he didn't say. "You don't have to worry about your clients being subject to enforcement action if they continue to apply," right? He didn't say that," said Planned Parenthood spokesman Peter Neumann and two doctors.

"Perhaps we will reach a point where the state of emergency has ended." But right now, I'm still in a situation where I have doctors who have to tell patients what their options are and they're not sure if they can do it completely, accurately and honestly without personal risk," he said.

Attorneys for the plaintiffs have argued in the lawsuit that Labrador's interpretation of the abortion ban conflicts with several constitutional guarantees, including First Amendment guarantees of free speech.

"Labrador's comments are unprecedented and a clear threat that Idaho wants to punish people in states where abortion is legal," the lawsuit said.

Lawyers called Labrador's legal opinion "truly novel" and "shocking," writing in the lawsuit that his comments "risk further isolating Idaho patients from critical health services in other states that are legal in those states."

The plaintiffs will now decide in court whether they want to continue with the emergency actions or whether they want to treat the action as normal, and a decision on this is expected to be made in the coming weeks.

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