Four women who filed a lawsuit over Idaho’s strict abortion ban told a judge Tuesday that their excitement over their pregnancies turned to sadness and fear after they learned their fetuses were unlikely to survive to term. She told the story of how she had to leave the state to get an abortion in fear of becoming pregnant. If complications occur, your own health may be at risk.
“We felt like we were made refugees, medical refugees,” said Jennifer Adkins, one of the plaintiffs in the lawsuit.
Women represented by the Reproductive Rights Center are not calling for an end to the state’s abortion ban. Instead, it wants judges to clarify and expand exceptions to the strict ban so that people facing serious pregnancy complications can access abortions before they face death.
Currently, the state’s near-total ban makes abortion at any stage of pregnancy a felony, except when “necessary to prevent the death of a pregnant woman.”
Adkins’ fetus had a serious medical condition that meant it was unlikely to survive the pregnancy. The disease also puts Adkins at risk of developing “Miller syndrome,” a dangerous syndrome that can cause fatal high blood pressure and other problems, she said.
Kyle Green/AP
Adkins and her husband, John, decided to seek an abortion, but when another ultrasound showed the baby still had a heartbeat, they learned they would have to travel out of state to get an abortion.
Idaho law does not allow the unborn child to be killed except in cases of rape, incest, or a “medical emergency,” which the law defines as “a condition that, in the opinion of reasonable medical judgment, would greatly complicate the condition of the unborn child.” prohibits women from obtaining an abortion if a heartbeat is detected. A medical condition in a pregnant woman that necessitates immediate termination of the pregnancy to avoid death, or a medical condition in a pregnant woman in which a delay in abortion poses a significant risk of serious and irreversible impairment of major bodily functions. ”
“No parent wants to not see their baby’s heartbeat on an ultrasound, but I was hoping that wasn’t the case here,” Adkins said. “I wanted the decision to be made for us and I wanted her suffering to end, so it was really hard to watch that and know that the challenges that we faced were ahead of us. It was.”
“I didn’t want to see my son suffer.”
Kayla Smith tearfully told the judge how she found out she was pregnant for the second time on Mother’s Day 2022 and how she and her husband named their son “Brooks.” Smith said she was about 18 or 20 weeks pregnant when the sonographer went silent during a routine anatomical scan.
Brooks had a fatal heart abnormality, and the young family was unable to find a pediatric cardiologist who would attempt surgery. Mr Smith said there was also an abnormality in the veins that supply blood to Brooks’ lungs, and he was unlikely to survive birth.
Ms Smith had developed dangerously high blood pressure during a previous pregnancy and was at risk of developing a condition called pre-eclampsia again.
“If I continued with the pregnancy, not only would I risk my life from pre-eclampsia, I didn’t want to see my son suffer and potentially gasp for air,” Smith said. He spoke while crying.
Idaho’s abortion ban went into effect two days before Brooks’ diagnosis, making it impossible for her to get an abortion in her home state, she said.
“We wanted to see our son and it was really important to us, so we had to meet him at the hospital,” she said.
They took out a loan to cover the estimated $16,000 to $20,000 out-of-network cost of the procedure and drove more than eight hours to the hospital, where doctors induced labor.
Gail Ded, an attorney with the Center for Reproductive Rights, told Fourth District Judge Jason D. Scott that “all four women are overjoyed to be pregnant with their second child, and as mothers can imagine… “I received the worst news,” he said. Opening argument. All of them sought abortions “to protect their health, to protect their babies from pain and suffering, to stay alive and healthy to protect their young children.”
James Craig, director of the Idaho Attorney General’s Office, said the women and their attorneys are basing their claims on assumptions rather than concrete facts. Under their proposal, a pregnant woman could undergo an abortion for something as minor as stepping on a rusty nail, even though the risk of infection in that case could be easily treated by receiving a tetanus booster shot. Craig said.
“Unborn children have a fundamental right to life, and protecting the lives of children is a legitimate and fundamental government interest,” Craig said.
Craig argued that the state has an equal interest in protecting women’s lives, and anti-abortion laws accomplish both.
Craig said that Idaho law allows for abortion in “rare circumstances where it is necessary” to prevent the death of the mother. He said the women suing were trying to “usurp the role of Congress” by asking judges to rewrite the law, but that was not the proper role of the courts.
Dr. Emily Corrigan, an emergency medicine gynecologist at St. Alphonsus Regional Medical Center and a plaintiff in the lawsuit, describes how Idaho’s multiple abortion bans have caused confusion for doctors and He told the judge how he was making treatment difficult for his patients. Those who require emergency treatment.
Corrigan said doctors “essentially have to guess which pregnancy conditions fall under the state’s medical exception.”
“Other hospital staff are refusing to participate in patient care due to lack of understanding of the law, which is causing delays in patient care,” she said. “I have personally treated several patients who were denied stable abortion care at other hospitals in Idaho. By the time they arrived at my facility, their condition worsened and I was leading to an increase in complications that needed to be managed.”
She said some conditions can put a pregnant person’s health at risk. Some, like pre-eclampsia, are caused by pregnancy, and others, like some chronic conditions and cancer, can be made worse by pregnancy, she said. In such cases, Corrigan said, while delaying an abortion may not immediately kill a woman, it can shorten her lifespan and have dramatic health effects.
“We are not trained to wait until there is an emergency. We are trained to prevent harm to the patient,” she said.
