Women Denied Abortions in Idaho Take on the State’s Near-Total Ban

In November 2022, Jillaine St. Michel was 20 weeks pregnant with her second child when an ultrasound revealed that her baby had serious developmental and genetic conditions that made it unlikely to survive the pregnancy. She and her husband were devastated, and decided that an abortion would be the most compassionate choice for their family. But they lived in Idaho at the time, which has one of the strictest abortion bans in the country. The couple contacted several abortion clinics outside of the state and they were eventually able to get an appointment at a clinic in Seattle, Washington because of a cancellation.

“I didn’t feel like I was able to properly grieve our situation and our experience because we had to deal with the logistics of everything—finding a hotel room, finding a rental vehicle, paying for the procedure out-of-pocket,” St. Michel, 38, says. “In the time of one of the worst situations you can imagine, having to put on your logistics hat and try to figure out how to make it happen was really sad.”

Now, St. Michel is one of seven plaintiffs in a lawsuit over Idaho’s law, as part of her effort to find a purpose in what was “the most painful experience” of her life, she says.

The trial begins in an Idaho court on Nov. 12 after the lawsuit was filed by the Center for Reproductive Rights in September 2023 on behalf of women who had experienced serious pregnancy complications but were denied abortions in the state. Idaho’s abortion ban has some limited exceptions, including for survivors of rape or incest who have reported the crime to law enforcement and are in the first trimester of their pregnancy, or if an abortion is necessary to prevent the pregnant person’s death. The lawsuit asks the court to clarify and expand what situations qualify as medical emergency exceptions under the state’s ban, arguing that the current law is vague and leaves medical providers uncertain about when they can provide abortion care or if they will be penalized under the state’s law.

The trial for Adkins v. State of Idaho comes on the heels of the 2024 election, which dealt a mixed hand for reproductive rights advocates—although seven states passed ballot measures meant to protect abortion access, similar measures failed in three states, and the country reelected former President Donald Trump, who has taken credit for the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization that overturned the constitutional right to abortion.

“The women who are filing this lawsuit have endured unthinkable suffering because of these bans, and state officials need to answer to these women in a court of law and take responsibility for the impact of the laws that they have passed,” says Gail Deady, senior staff attorney at the Center for Reproductive Rights’ U.S. Litigation Program and lead attorney on the case.

James Craig, the attorney representing the state of Idaho in the case, deferred questions to the spokesperson for the Idaho Office of the Attorney General, who declined to comment on the pending litigation. Craig has previously argued that the state’s abortion ban is not vague, telling the Idaho Capital Sun that “all that’s required is for the treating physician to make a good faith medical judgment that providing an abortion is necessary to prevent the death of a pregnant woman.”

St. Michel later became pregnant again and gave birth to her second child, a boy, about nine months ago. She and her husband ended up moving with their two children to Blaine, Minnesota in July, partly because of their abortion experience. “I just couldn’t have imagined raising a daughter and her being exposed to that type of narrative, right? That a woman does not get to make a decision about her body—or heaven forbid, she faced something similar someday,” St. Michel says. “It just felt like [an] unnecessary risk to take to remain in the state.”

Being denied care

There are seven plaintiffs in the case, including four women who were denied abortion care, two medical providers in the state, and a professional membership organization of Idaho medical  providers. The lead plaintiff is a 32-year-old woman named Jennifer Adkins, who lives in Caldwell, Idaho. 

Adkins says she and her husband were “overjoyed” when they learned she was pregnant with their second child in February 2023. But when she was 12 weeks along, doctors told Adkins that her ultrasound indicated that her baby likely had Turner syndrome, a rare chromosomal condition, as well as several other conditions. Doctors told Adkins that her baby was unlikely to survive, and that, even if she didn’t experience a miscarriage, there was a high chance that she would develop a life-threatening condition, like edema or preeclampsia, if she continued the pregnancy. Because of Idaho’s near-total ban, Adkins wasn’t able to get an abortion in her home state.

“We were told that our baby wasn't going to survive the pregnancy, and that the longer I stayed pregnant, the sicker I could become and that was putting my life and my health at risk,” Adkins says. “We already had a toddler to consider, and we had so many things to consider, and not being able to access that care was really scary.”

Adkins started calling abortion clinics as soon as she got home from the doctor’s office. “It was really challenging to be making these phone calls while also still processing the fact that my baby was going to die and trying to cope with that while still moving forward and trying to find access to a clinic that could take me,” she says. 

Ultimately, Adkins and her husband received financial assistance from two abortion funds and were able to travel to Portland, Oregon to receive care. They both had to take time off work, drive out of the state, and ask family members to watch over their son.

“In the moment, I was really trying to stay strong because I knew I was on a timeline; I knew that not only the longer I stayed pregnant, the more sick I could become, but I also knew that the longer I stayed pregnant, the harder it would be to access abortion care because I would be further and further along in my pregnancy,” Adkins says. 

She says she was privileged to have had the resources that eventually allowed her to get an abortion, and felt compelled to join the lawsuit to try to prevent others from having the same experience. 

The fight in Idaho and beyond

The outcome of the lawsuit could clarify whether women like St. Michel or Adkins will be able to receive abortion care in their home state.

It isn’t the first time the Idaho law has been litigated: the Biden Administration sued the state in 2022 over its near-total ban, and the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in June that Idaho hospitals receiving federal funds can temporarily provide emergency abortions when patients are experiencing serious risks to their health. While the ruling was a partial win for the Biden Administration, Deady says that not all situations are covered under this ruling—for instance, some fatal fetal condition diagnoses or situations where a pregnant person’s fertility is threatened.

“These exceptions in these bans are unclear; they use non-medical language that is confusing to doctors,” Deady says. “We are asking courts to put an end to this chaos and to give doctors clarity on when they can perform abortions, and we are trying to save lives because, as we have seen, these extreme abortion bans have already resulted in death in the United States.”

Read More: Emergency Doctor Worries Louisiana’s New Classification for Abortion Meds Could Be Life-Threatening

Since the Dobbs ruling, many advocates, patients, and medical providers have been challenging state abortion restrictions in court. The Center for Reproductive Rights has filed similar lawsuits in Tennessee and Oklahoma, both of which have banned abortion in nearly all situations. 

Advocates and medical providers have expressed concern and outrage over how restricting abortion can prevent people from receiving critical medical treatment. ProPublica has reported on multiple women who died after being denied care in life-threatening situations in states that have restricted or banned abortion. 

About four months ago, Adkins gave birth to her second child—a baby boy. Her pregnancy went relatively smoothly, but the entire time was “filled with a lot of anxiety and a lot of concern,” she says, because she knew firsthand how difficult it would be if something went wrong again. Many doctors have moved out of the state since the Dobbs ruling; about 55% of the state’s high-risk obstetricians have left Idaho, according to a report released in February. 

St. Michel gave birth to her now nine-month-old son in Idaho, but while she was pregnant, she worried about the possibility of experiencing complications again.

“Nobody should have to go through their pregnancy wondering, ‘How am I going to flee somewhere else? Who is willing to take me in? Who is willing to provide medical care for me?’ That shouldn’t be even a thought that crosses your mind when you’re pregnant—you should just feel like you have confidence in the state that you live in that you can access proper medical care when needed,” St. Michel says.