Planned Parenthood will now be using billboards to direct Idaho residents to out-of-state abortion clinics just months after the state’s new six week abortion ban took effect.
Idaho’s new law criminalizes “abortion trafficking,” barring adults from helping minors undergo an abortion through a procedure or with medication in any other state without parental consent. Those who violate the new law can face felony charges, as well as two to five years in state prison.
Under the legislation, a father, grandparent, sibling, aunt, or uncle of an aborted baby has the right to sue an adult who helped the minor obtain the procedure up to four years after the abortion is performed.
The law exempts abortions performed when a woman becomes pregnant through rape or incest, or in order to save the woman’s life. It also makes doctors subject to two years in prison and fines of a minimum $20,000 for performing the illegal procedure.
Planned Parenthood, which aborted more than 374,000 babies last year alone, according to its annual report, has purchased advertising space at half a dozen billboards in response to residents who are unsure if they can leave the state to obtain an abortion.
“We’ve created this information campaign, to let Idahoans know where they can access safe and legal abortion outside of the state of Idaho,” Planned Parenthood Great Northwest Hawai’i, Alaska, Indiana, Kentucky (PPGNHAIK) CEO Rebecca Gibron, told KTVB7. “We intend to have these up for a good deal of time, to help bring awareness for Idahoans who need access to abortion care, to bring awareness to where they can receive that care out of the state of Idaho.”
There has already been confusion over the new law. The state’s Attorney General, Raul Labrador, wrote a letter to a state lawmaker advising that an Idaho doctor referring a woman to receive an abortion out-of-state is illegal, KTVB7 reported. But, Labrador’s office later stated that the letter was not an official opinion, which led Planned Parenthood to take the issue to court over concerns the letter could apply at a later date.
“During our first hearing with the judge, his office refused to disavow the opinions contained in that letter, and I think that’s significant,” Gibron said. “It is absolutely having a chilling effect on providers, and it’s really getting in the way of that relationship between the physician and their patient.”
Planned Parenthood’s national organization began launching billboards last year, just a short time after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade.
