Abortion Permissible When Woman’s Life at Risk, Idaho Judge Says

Pregnant women facing a “non-negligible risk of dying” can obtain an abortion under Idaho law, which almost completely outlaws the practice, a state judge ruled.

Judge Jason D. Scott clarified the exception in a judgment on Friday, loosening the state’s restrictive abortion legislation. Scott dismissed the remaining legal challenges from physicians and Idaho women who were denied abortion care. The plaintiffs sought clarity on circumstances that qualify under the laws’ “medical emergency” exception and argued the state constitution protects the ability to obtain an abortion in dire situations.

“Today’s ruling will help us preserve the health of some of our patients the way that we have been trained,” said plaintiff Dr. Emily Corrigan in a statement Friday for Center for Reproductive Rights. “But we will still be forced to turn people away, against our training as physicians.”

Scott said the clarified exception is permissible so long as the risk of death doesn’t arise from a risk of self-harm and the abortion, without increasing the risk of the mother’s death, “best facilitates the unborn child’s survival outside the uterus, if feasible.”

The plaintiffs sued in 2023, seeking clarity on the scope of the medical exceptions consistent with the Idaho Constitution, they said in their complaint. They also argued that state officials had no right to enforce the state’s abortion restrictions contrary to the state constitution. They also contended that it violated the state constitution to enforce restrictions against pregnant people with “emergent medical conditions” and their physicians.

Scott didn’t elaborate on the remaining legal challenges and dismissed them with prejudice, according to the judgment. The Center for Reproductive Rights, which served as co-counsel for the plaintiffs, said in its statement that the ruling excludes pregnant people with “lethal fetal conditions” from the exception unless the mother’s life is also at risk.

The ruling also excludes those at risk of death from self-harm due to mental health conditions from the exception, the Center said.

This judgment “leaves behind so many people, including some of the women who brought this case,” said Gail Deady in the statement, an attorney with the Center.

Center for Reproductive Rights, O’Melveny & Myers LLP, and Nevin Benjamin & McKay LLP represent the plaintiffs. Idaho’s Office of the Attorney General represents the state.

The case is Adkins v. Idaho, Idaho Dist. Ct., No. CV01-23-14744, judgment 4/11/25.