Legal Challenge to the Law Could Leave Idaho’s Daughters Vulnerable to Sexual Predators
WASHINGTON – In April, Governor Brad Little of Idaho signed a bill designed to protect minor daughters in the state of Idaho.
Idaho’s HB 242 prevents an abortion—whether surgical or procured using abortion drugs—from being performed on a minor without the knowledge of her parents or guardians.
Since then, misinformation about the law and its scope has made its way into the mainstream media. In July, pro-abortion groups filed for a temporary restraining order against enforcement of the law, once again prompting stories loaded with misinformation.
“If successful, the challenge to Idaho’s abortion trafficking law could potentially make minor daughters the victims of sexual predators and traffickers,” said Carol Tobias, president of National Right to Life (NRLC). “The only ones to benefit would be the traffickers who would exploit minor girls.”
HB 242 makes it a crime for an adult to transport a pregnant minor within the state of Idaho for the purpose of obtaining an abortion with the intent to conceal the abortion from the parents or guardian of the minor.
“There are those who would prey on minors and then conceal their crimes by procuring abortions for their victims,” said Tobias. “Idaho’s law is designed to protect minor daughters from predators and from those who would deny parents the right to be involved in their minor daughter’s abortion.”
Idaho is the first state to make abortion trafficking of minors illegal and the language is based on the model National Right to Life drafted in June 2022. Missouri passed a law in 2005 that prohibits aiding a minor in getting an abortion without her parents’ consent.
In Dobbs v. Jackson, the U.S. Supreme Court determined that “The Constitution does not confer a right to abortion; Roe and Casey are overruled; and the authority to regulate abortion is returned to the people and their elected representatives.”