Two Republican lawmakers are preparing a bill to repeal the section of Idaho’s homicide law that excludes abortion from prosecution and assert that the state has a right to nullify any federal laws or court rulings making abortion legal.
Reps. Heather Scott and John Green released a draft copy of their “Idaho Abortion Human Rights Act” on Tuesday. The bill’s statement of legislative intent says it would protect Idaho law enforcement and officials from being directed by the federal government to allow abortions, saying the state “has the authority to nullify federal laws that would allow abortions.”
The Idaho Press reports, Scott and Green said they aren’t trying to “establish a test case for federal judicial review.” Instead, they believe the U.S. Supreme Court precedents legalizing abortion are themselves unconstitutional, and therefore the state shouldn’t abide by it. They said abortion is “the chief means of depriving unborn Idahoans of the most fundamental of all human rights, which is the right to life.”
The bill, which has not been introduced yet, speaks to two issues that come up fairly frequently in the statehouse — abortion and a state’s right to go against federal law.
