Idaho Can Enforce ‘Abortion Trafficking’ Law: Federal Appeals Court

The law prohibits helping a minor obtain an abortion or an abortion-inducing drug.

Idaho Attorney General Raul Labrador speaks outside the Supreme Court in Washington, on April 24, 2024. Andrew Harnik/Getty Images

Idaho’s law against “abortion trafficking” can be enforced, a U.S. appeals court ruled on Dec. 2.

Groups that challenged the law are unlikely to succeed in their claims that the statute infringes on their First Amendment rights, a panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruled.

The groups had argued the law, which bars recruiting, harboring, or transporting a pregnant minor with the intention to conceal an abortion from the minor’s parents, was unconstitutionally vague. The judges disagreed.

“Certain conduct is either clearly proscribed by the statute, such as providing transportation and shelter to minors seeking abortions in other states; clearly not proscribed by the statute, such as soliciting donations to organizations that support pregnant minors seeking abortions; or, in the case of conduct that might be understood as ’recruiting,' is subject to an “imprecise but comprehensible normative standard,” U.S. Circuit Judge M. Margaret McKeown wrote for the panel.

The judges also found the law does not restrict the rights of association protected by the First Amendment or free speech rights in part because harboring and transporting are not expressive.

The panel did partially rule against the state, finding that the recruiting prohibition likely runs afoul of constitutional rights.

Judges also said that Idaho cannot bar state residents from getting abortions in other states.

U.S. Circuit Judge John Owens joined McKeown. U.S. Circuit Judge Carlos Bea said that the entire case should be dismissed because plaintiffs sued Idaho Attorney General Raul Labrador, rather than local prosecutors.

The ruling means Idaho can largely enforce the law and it overturns a previous ruling from U.S. District Judge Debora K. Grasham, who said the law was “so unconstitutionally vague that ordinary individuals, including the proponents of the legislation themselves, are without fair notice of what conduct is proscribed and that subjects individuals to arbitrary enforcement.”

Idaho bans almost all abortions. The abortion trafficking law was approved in 2023, in the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court ruling that overturned Roe v. Wade, returning to state legislatures the ability to restrict or protect abortions.

Labrador said in a statement that the ruling was “a tremendous victory for Idaho and defending the rule of law as written by the people’s representatives.”

A lawyer for the plaintiffs told news outlets in a statement, “This decision is a significant victory for the plaintiffs, as it frees Idahoans to talk with pregnant minors about abortion health care.”