Proposition One: Reproductive Freedom & Privacy Act
Funding source statement (by proponents): No funding source is required for the Reproductive Freedom and Privacy Act as it does not create any new financial obligation on the state. Because no funding source is required, the Act has no impact on income taxes, sales tax, or product taxes.
Short ballot title: Measure creating right to abortion before fetus viability, and post-viability to protect health; right to privacy; healthcare provider liability protections. Long ballot title: The measure seeks to change Idaho’s laws by introducing a right to reproductive freedom and privacy including a right to abortion up to the point of the fetus’s ability to survive outside the womb. After fetal viability, there would be no general right to abortion except in cases of “medical emergency.” The “medical emergency” exception would expand Idaho’s current life exception and allow abortions when pregnant women face complicating physical conditions that threaten their life or health, “including serious impairment to a bodily function” or “serious dysfunction of any bodily organ or part.” The proposed measure codifies a right to make reproductive decisions, including contraception, fertility treatment, and prenatal and postpartum care. This includes a “right of privacy” in making these decisions. The measure seeks to prevent the state from enforcing certain abortion laws protecting the life of the unborn child. It would also impose a requirement that any restrictions on reproductive decisions, including abortion prior to fetus viability, must be “narrowly tailored to improve or maintain the health of the person seeking reproductive health care.” The measure would also prevent the state from penalizing patients, healthcare providers, or anyone who assists in exercising the proposed right.
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.
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.
Not published by the state
The State estimates the initiative would increase state expenditures between $3,100 and $7,800 annually, less than 0.001% of the state share of Idaho’s Medicaid budget. This impact is derived from the costs of treating chemical abortion complications for women enrolled in Idaho’s Medicaid program. Medicaid covers medically necessary services to treat complications from all abortions. It is anticipated that as legal abortions increase, the complications will also increase. This will likely result in an increase in Medicaid covered services and expenditures to treat complications from chemical abortions, which the State has reliable and readily available data to support. Detailed Statement of Fiscal Impact Including Assumptions Based on the amount of reliable data gathered by the Division [sic] Financial Management (DFM) and the outcome of the initiative (if passed), DFM limited its assumptions about any increase in costs to the state to those costs arising from the treatment of Medicaid recipients for chemical abortion complications. DFM does not have reliable and readily accessible data to reasonably calculate the fiscal impact attributable to the complications for surgical abortions. Based on data provided by Department of Health and Welfare (DHW), DFM considered the number of childbearing women on Medicaid in 2021 which was 97,055. This represents about 25% of the total Idaho population for women in this same age group. DFM assumed that, as a result of this initiative, the number of chemical abortions conducted annually would increase to the levels prior to 2022, the year of the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision returning the regulation of abortion to the States. Based on the number of chemical abortions performed in Idaho using the 2021 data from the vital records report (approximately 1,180), DFM assumed 25% (approximately 300) of those individuals were Medicaid recipients. Taking the number of Medicaid recipients who would receive a chemical abortion, DFM assumed that 2% - 5% of those chemical abortions would result in complications. DFM assumed this based on information provided in (1) the United State’s [sic] Food and Drug Administration’s warning label for the Mifeprex and (2) studies related to abortion complications that were published on the National Library of Medicine website, which DHW provided to DFM. Based on the claims for complications from chemical abortions provided by DHW for 2019 and 2022 claims data, DFM applied an average per person claim cost and added a 4% medical inflation year over year to account for current medical costs in FY2026. Based on that calculation, DFM assumes that about 300 individuals on Medicaid in Idaho could receive a chemical abortion and of those, 6 to 15 individuals could have complications from that chemical abortion with an average claim cost of about $531 (state portion of the cost). Based on the process utilized, evidence readily available and gathered, and assumptions used to create the fiscal impact statement, total expenditures for the state would range from $3,100 to $7,800 per year. While the specific fiscal impact to the state’s expenditures is difficult to quantify, DFM cannot in good faith conclude that the proposed initiative will have no fiscal impact on state expenditures.
This Proposition creates needed exceptions to Idaho’s extreme abortion ban, ensuring that sensitive, urgent decisions in medical emergencies are made by patients and their doctors — not by the government. When a pregnancy becomes dangerous, when a diagnosis is fatal, or when a mother’s health is at risk, decisions about the best course of care and action should be made at her bedside, by her, her doctor, and her family. Her care should not be dictated by politicians who will never know her name. Here is what too many Idahoans don’t yet realize: Idaho’s abortion ban is one of the most severe in the nation, and it took effect only recently. The impacts of that ban have been swift and dangerous. The current law provides no health or emergency exception, leaving doctors unable to act until a crisis becomes critical. Doctors face prison time for using their best medical judgment. Pregnant women have been airlifted to Utah to receive health-saving interventions, or forced to wait until they are near death before receiving care. • Voting YES would restore the standard Idaho operated under for nearly 50 years, with health and life exceptions to the abortion ban, including cases of fatal fetal diagnosis. • Voting YES would protect doctors and nurses from criminal prosecution for providing standard medical care, at a time when Idaho is already losing OB-GYNs, family doctors, and emergency physicians. • Voting YES also protects the care Idaho families count on every day: birth control, contraception, and fertility treatments like IVF. • Voting YES does NOT create public funding for abortion, nor does it force any provider to violate their conscience. • Voting YES does NOT change Idaho’s current parental consent laws: all healthcare for minors would still require the permission of a parent or guardian. As the titles and language of the Act plainly state, voting YES decriminalizes abortion, while maintaining reasonable restrictions, to ensure that the government isn’t involved in personal family medical decisions. This is not a new idea: it is the same commonsense standard Idaho doctors practiced under for two generations. The signers of this Act — thousands of people from all walks of life in every corner of our state who put this question on the ballot for your vote — agree on one thing even when they may agree on little else: politicians are the wrong people to be making sensitive, private, complex decisions about our families, health, and futures. There is one question every voter should ask themselves: who do you trust with your family’s most private medical decisions? Is it you and your doctor, or politicians? The only way to ensure there are exceptions to Idaho’s ban is by voting YES on Proposition One.
Idahoans United for Women & Families
Idaho Family Policy Center, Idaho Chooses Life, Right to Life Idaho, Too Extreme for Idaho, and the Roman Catholic Diocese of Boise
Proposition 1 is a backdoor attempt to legalize late-term abortions, long past the point in pregnancy at which babies can feel pain. Most people don’t support elective abortion at seven or even eight months of pregnancy. Most people want parents involved when their teenage daughter is seeking an abortion. And most people believe that abortions should only be performed by doctors. Prop 1 erases all of these protections and goes too far for most Idahoans. When it comes to writing laws, words matter—and the lawyers who wrote Prop 1 deliberately used tricky language to mislead voters. It’s deceptive by design. And voters must examine the fine print. Prop 1 claims to allow abortions only to the point of “viability” but throws out the longstanding definition of that term. Idaho law has always defined “fetal viability” as the point at which a baby could “potentially live outside the mother’s womb, albeit with artificial aid.” But Prop 1 redefines viability as the point when a baby has a “significant likelihood of sustained survival without extraordinary medical measures.” Notice the bait-andswitch: the word “potentially” has been replaced by “significant likelihood,” and the phrase “albeit with artificial aid” has been replaced by “without extraordinary medical measures.” This radical approach isn’t based in law or medicine. Many premature babies can survive with the assistance of oxygen, nutrition, or other extraordinary measures. But under Prop 1, some of these babies would no longer be protected. Prop 1 would permit abortion on demand until seven or eight months of pregnancy—far beyond what was allowed even under Roe v. Wade. Almost everyone agrees that there comes a time in a pregnancy when it’s just too late for an abortion. Good people may disagree over when to draw that line. But most Idahoans believe unrestricted late-term abortion is too extreme for Idaho. And it doesn’t stop there. Prop 1 also eliminates the longstanding safety requirement that only doctors can perform abortions. It replaces “physician” with the vague term “health care provider,” which it defines as any “licensed person or entity that provides health care or medical treatment.” This even includes people who aren’t doctors—such as abortion clinic employees. By stripping women’s health protections, Prop 1 endangers the women it is supposed to help. But perhaps the most shocking of all? Prop 1 authorizes “health care providers” to perform abortions on teenage girls behind the backs of their parents, overturning parental consent requirements. That’s because Prop 1 creates a right to abortion for “every person” regardless of age, making abortion the only procedure that could be performed on a child without parental involvement. Prop 1 organizers want to bring California-style abortion laws to Idaho. They are determined to legalize lateterm abortions. And they won’t stop until they’ve gutted patient protections and eliminated parental rights. That’s what they won’t tell you—but it’s the truth. And it’s right there in black and white. Prop 1 is too extreme for Idaho. Vote NO.
Idaho Family Policy Center, Idaho Chooses Life, Right to Life Idaho, Too Extreme for Idaho, and the Roman Catholic Diocese of Boise
Idahoans United for Women & Families
Both columns use the same layout. Text is quoted from the official state guide. Views expressed belong to the argument authors.