A federal judge blocks Idaho from prosecuting doctors for
health-protecting abortions
[August 15, 2026]
By REBECCA BOONE
BOISE, Idaho (AP) — A federal judge says Idaho can't prosecute doctors
who perform abortions to protect a pregnant person's health or prevent
self-harm.
U.S. District Judge B. Lynn Winmill made the ruling Thursday, writing
that Idaho's “Defense of Life Act" and “Fetal Heartbeat Act” — which
together create a near-total ban on abortion — violate the due process
and equal protection clauses of the 14th Amendment. Physicians who
violate the laws can lose their license and face up to five years in
prison.
Both laws include narrow exceptions, including abortions done to prevent
the death of a pregnant woman or in some cases of rape or incest where
the pregnant person has filed a police report.
The case isn't about bodily autonomy or reproductive choice, Winmill
wrote in the 81-page decision, but rather the “limit of the state's
power to make a woman suffer for the sake of an unborn child.”
The state can't pick and choose which life-threatening conditions
justify abortion, he wrote.
“A pregnant woman’s health is not a state resource to be allocated at
the legislature’s whim,” Winmill wrote.
Idaho's attorney general plans to appeal
Dr. Stacy Seyb, a Boise maternal-fetal medicine specialist who sued over
the law in 2024, said the ruling will allow him to practice medicine
without fear of prosecution, and to offer patients with serious medical
conditions the option of ending a pregnancy without having to leave the
state.
Idaho Attorney General Raul Labrador said he would appeal, and is
“confident this decision will be overturned.”
“The Supreme Court made clear that abortion policy belongs to the people
and their elected representatives, not a single federal judge," Labrador
wrote in a statement.
A doctor says the ban forced patients out of state
In the lawsuit, Seyb said he wanted to provide abortions to patients
facing serious health risks, including those at high risk of self-harm
from mental illnesses. He also said he should be able to provide
abortions when the fetus has been diagnosed with a fatal or grave
condition, when a miscarriage is inevitable, or in multi-fetal
pregnancies where reducing the number of fetuses would increase the
likelihood that the others would survive.
Attorneys for county prosecutors and the Idaho Attorney General argued
that Seyb misunderstood the state's abortion ban, and that the ban
already allows most health-preserving abortions. But Winmill said there
is a gap between life-saving abortions and abortions performed to
prevent non-lethal harm, and noted that Seyb said he has to refer
patients in that gap to other states for care — including several with
grave pregnancy complications who had to be flown to Utah for treatment.
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 Judge: Idaho can't force women to
bear permanent damage for a fetus
Winmill said just like the state can't force a mother to donate a
kidney to her toddler, it can't force a pregnant woman to suffer
serious harm for a fetus.
The judge also said there is no reason to treat mental illness
differently than other health conditions. Barring a pregnant woman
from life-saving care for mental illness threats is “an affront to
human dignity,” Winmill wrote.
Seyb noted suicide and overdose are among the leading causes of
death for pregnant and post-partum people in the U.S., and that
between 2018 and 2021 mental health conditions were the most common
underlying cause of maternal death in Idaho according to the state's
Maternal Mortality Review Committee.
In cases where there is no elevated health risk for the mother —
including situations where the fetus will die shortly after birth or
in multi-gestation pregnancies where aborting one fetus will help
the others survive — there is no fundamental right at stake, Winmill
found.
That's because in these cases, the law is rationally related to the
state's interest in preventing abortions based on mistaken fetal
diagnoses and affirming the dignity of people with profound
disabilities, Winmill wrote.
And physicians could still face civil penalties for performing
abortions under another state law, which allows extended family
members of an aborted fetus to sue the provider for at least
$20,000.
Abortion is on the ballot this fall in Idaho and other states
Idaho voters will decide this fall whether to roll back the state's
abortion ban. If approved, the voter-led initiative would allow
abortion until fetal viability, which is generally considered to be
after 21 weeks.
Voters in Virginia and Nevada, where abortion is legal through at
least 24 weeks, will consider state constitutional amendments
creating a right to abortion. In Missouri, voters are being asked to
override a constitutional amendment passed in 2024 in order to bring
back an abortion ban.
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