OPINION: Labrador bets heavily on abortion in his gamble to win higher office
Jim Jones
During his first year as Idaho Attorney General, Raul Labrador has placed most of his chips on the abortion issue in his quest for higher office. He has been aided and abetted, free of charge, by Alliance Defending Freedom, a powerful extreme-right legal organization in the nation’s capital that is intent on stamping out any perceived form of abortion across the entire country. ADF played a major role in overturning Roe v. Wade.
Labrador began his term as AG with a March 27 opinion declaring that Idaho’s strictest-in-the-nation abortion laws criminalized Idaho doctors for “providing abortion pills” and “either referring a woman across state lines to access abortion services” or to obtain abortion pills. When the opinion was challenged in court, Labrador withdrew it, but refused to disavow it. Strangely enough, Idaho’s laws are so strict that the opinion was probably correct, even though seriously suspect under the U.S. Constitution.
Since that time, Labrador has opposed a federal rule change that would protect the confidentiality of pregnant women’s medical records from snooping state attorneys general. The rule is designed to protect the privacy of women who travel out of state for pregnancy care. Labrador has also strenuously sought to enforce Idaho’s “abortion trafficking” law.
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