By Dave Andrusko
Among the achievements of Right to Life of Idaho in the 2018 session were passage of Abortion Pill Reversal Informed Consent (SB 1243), and Reporting of Abortion Complications into law (HB 638).
According to Kerry Uhlenkott, Legislative Coordinator, Right to Life of Idaho, HB 638, which went into effect July 1, “expands the reporting law to require reporting for abortion complications for any abortion by all medical facilities, including hospitals and emergency rooms. Under [the prior] law, reporting of abortion complications is ‘optional’ for only the abortion clinics themselves, such as Planned Parenthood.”
Guess who filed a lawsuit on Tuesday in Idaho’s U.S. District Court? Planned Parenthood of the Great Northwest and the Hawaiian Islands which “is suing the state of Idaho in federal court over new abortion reporting requirements that critics say are unconstitutional and intended to stigmatize women seeking medical care,” reported the Associated Press’ Rebecca Boone. “ They are “asking a judge to declare the reporting law void.”
Lauretta Brown went into greater detail about what exactly HB 638 requires (hint: it is not to “stigmatize women” but to protect them).
The legislation details 37 abortion complications that must be reported to the Idaho Department of Health and Welfare including infection, blood clots, and hemorrhaging. The bill also requires that any psychological conditions following an abortion be reported such as depression, anxiety, and sleeping disorders.
It mandates that abortion providers report the number of times their patients have had past abortions and other information about the patients including age, race, and number of children.
Beyond bogus notions of stigmatizing women, Planned Parenthood argues (as it always does) that the law is “vague,” “arbitrarily singles out just one medical procedure for the reporting requirement,” and that there are hardly ever complications.