Case: Adkins v. State of Idaho

This suit challenged Idaho's Total Abortion Ban and Six-Week Abortion Ban as violating the rights of pregnant people and physicians protected by the Idaho Constitution.

On September 11, 2023, four private plaintiffs, two doctors, and the Idaho Academy of Physicians, (collectively, “DRP”) sued the Governor of Idaho, the Attorney General of Idaho, and the Idaho State Board of Medicine (the “State Board”), (collectively, “Idaho”) in Idaho state trial court. DRP challenged both Idaho’s Total Abortion Ban and Six-Week Abortion Ban as violating the rights of Idahoans protected by the Idaho constitution. DRP was represented by the Center for Reproductive Rights and private counsel. This case was assigned to Judge Jason D. Scott.

In 2020, Idaho enacted their Total Abortion Ban (or “Total Ban”), which prohibited abortions in all stages of pregnancy without exceptions and imposed felony criminal penalties on every person who performed, or attempted to perform, an abortion. In 2023, Idaho amended the Ban to allow exceptions for abortion when necessary to prevent a pregnant woman’s death, but DRP alleged it was unclear if the exception protected Idahoans for whom pregnancy posed serious threats to their health and safety, like in the cases of the private plaintiffs here. DRP also alleged that the Total Ban treated pregnant people differently than non-pregnant people because pregnant people were not allowed to seek abortions to treat medical conditions that posed a risk to their lives or a significant risk to their health, thus violating their fundamental right to equality protected by the Idaho constitution.

Idaho also had a Six-Week Abortion Ban, which imposed civil and felony criminal penalties for physicians and granted family members of the “preborn child” the ability to sue an abortion provider. The Six-Week Ban had an exception that allowed physicians in their “reasonable medical judgment” to perform abortions when the pregnancy created complications in the “medical condition of a pregnant woman as to necessitate the immediate abortion of her pregnancy to avert her death or for which a delay will create serious risk of substantial and irreversible impairment of a major bodily function.” The State Board, the governing body of all Idaho-licensed physicians, was granted by Idaho-law the power to implement disciplinary and licensing procedures to suspend or revoke medical licenses of any physician who performed an abortion the State Board determined did not meet the medical exceptions in the Total Ban or Six-Week Ban. DRP alleged that “revoking or suspending a physician’s license based on a flawed interpretation of the [m]edical [e]xceptions is improper interference with the physician’s vested property interest in their license” and “sending a physician to prison for up to five years for providing timely and appropriate medical care to a pregnant person with an emergent medical condition is improper interference with the physician’s liberty.” DRP argued that the Idaho constitution protected physicians’ rights to liberty, property, and substantive due process of law, and these bans violated these rights.

Thus, DRP sought a declaratory judgment clarifying the scope of Idaho’s conflicting medical exceptions, and declaratory or injunctive relief.

On October 31, 2023, Idaho filed a motion to dismiss. First, they argued Idaho’s Supreme Court already held that Idaho’s Constitution did not contain a right to abortion and analyzed the issue under the Equal Protection Clause and the Due Process Clause, amongst others. Further, DRP failed to state a claim upon which relief may be granted because DRP was asking the court to improperly legislate by adding exceptions that did not exist in the statute and because DRP asked the court to issue an advisory opinion based on hypothetical facts. Lastly, even if DRP were to get a permanent injunction against Idaho, this would not stop each of Idaho’s counties’ prosecutors from bringing criminal charges.

On December 29, 2023, the court granted in part and denied in part Idaho’s motion to dismiss. The court agreed that the named defendants were not the proper defendants in this suit because county prosecutors primarily enforced the Total Ban and the Six-Week Ban, while the defendants were merely secondary enforcers, and thus “redundant defendants.” The court dismissed all claims against the Governor of Idaho and the State Board all claims, without leave to amend; however the court held that if DRP could allege facts showing that the Attorney General was likely to use his secondary authority to prosecute violations of the bans, then DRP could file an amended complaint. The court also dismissed the equal protection and due process challenges because the Idaho Supreme Court already decided these issues and found that there was no violation under these clauses. However, the court found that DRP could continue to seek a declaratory judgment stating that the medical exceptions permitted a physician, using their good faith judgment, to provide an abortion when the pregnant person had an emergent medical condition that posed a risk of death or to their health. The court also found that the claim that pregnant Idahoans inalienable rights were being violated by the two bans could continue to move forward.

On August 19, 2024, Idaho filed a motion for summary judgment, and on October 21, the court rejected the motion. Idaho filed a motion to dismiss on November 20. The Clearinghouse does not have access to any of these documents at this time. 

A trial on the case was held between November 12 and November 21, 2024. The case is ongoing as of April 6, 2025.