HB 366 is the Idaho legislature's second iteration of a 6-week abortion ban. The previous iteration, SB 1085, was sent back to committee. Similar to SB 1085, this bill would ban abortions before most people even realize that they are pregnant. HB 366 also imposes felony liability on health care providers for providing ethical, necessary care to their patients *if triggered. This legislation would also mandate that any person seeking an abortion receive a transvaginal ultrasound—-the only way a provider can detect a fetal pole this early on in pregnancy.
This iteration of the 6-week abortion ban is particularly cruel to survivors of rape and incest. The bill language was deliberately amended to narrow the rape and incest exemption to only apply when survivors report their trauma to law enforcement. Applying for an exemption asks victims to undertake an onerous process that can compound the trauma of being raped and becoming pregnant.
*It should be noted that no 6-week abortion ban has survived judicial scrutiny— these sort of pre-viability bans are clearly unconstitutional. In an apparent nod to the clear illegality of this piece legislation, the drafters have incorporated a "trigger provision," which makes it so that the piece of legislation would not go into effect unless a circuit court were to uphold a similar pre-viability abortion ban.
