Idaho House approves new medical abortion regulations

BOISE - Idaho's Republican-controlled House voted Monday to prohibit doctors from prescribing abortion-inducing medication through telemedicine -a practice not even offered in the state - on a party-line vote.

Under a 55-14 vote, the House's GOP members endorsed requiring doctors to be present when administering pregnancy-ending pills. It also requires doctors to make "all reasonable efforts" to schedule a follow-up, but it does not specify how many days later.

Supporters of the bill, which is now headed to the Senate, argued the legislation will better protect women's health against so-called "webcam abortions" and warned that some women suffer complications that result in surgical abortions. Others hoped the bill would limit the number of abortions that occur in the future.

"I believe HB154 is wise legislation and promotes the well-being of women," said Rep. Linden Bateman, R-Idaho Falls. "I think it may cause some women to ponder a little longer before having an abortion."

House Democrats countered that the bill inappropriately allowed the Idaho Legislature to regulate medicine rather than physicians.

"We should not restrict physicians to deliver the safest form of care," said Democratic Rep. Melissa Wintrow of Boise. "It does nothing to enhance safety. It works to restrict access to safe and healthy procedures."

Wintrow also added that telemedicine is not a casual webcam interaction. Instead, she said telemedicine requires licensed staff to be with a patient as they interact with a physician over secure and confidential channels.

Currently, 16 states require abortion-inducing medication be given in person, according to the Guttmacher Institute, a research center which supports abortion rights. Thirty-eight states - including Idaho - require licensed physicians to be the only ones to give abortion medication.

In Idaho, Planned Parenthood of the Great Northwest runs the state's only three health centers that provide abortion services. The centers offer abortion medication solely in-person.

The measure is one of several abortion-related bills Idaho lawmakers are considering this legislative session.

The measures includes a proposed bill seeking to define the scope of telemedicine in Idaho, which somewhat overlaps with HB154, because it specifically bans doctors from prescribing abortion drugs via videoconferencing. In the Idaho Senate, lawmakers are considering a bill that would require doctors who perform abortions to have admitting privileges at a local hospital.

In 2013, U.S. District B. Lynn Winmill overturned Idaho's law banning abortions after 20 weeks. Winmill also chided the Idaho Legislature's motivation to pass the law, ruling that efforts to protect a fetus should not outweigh a woman's right to choose.

Winmill's ruling also found several Idaho abortion laws were unconstitutional - the requirement that second-trimester abortions be performed in a hospital, the requirement that only physicians in a staffed clinic may perform first-trimester abortions, and a statute that criminalized women in some cases for undergoing the procedure. The local prosecutor later dropped charges against an eastern Idaho woman who was briefly charged with having an illegal abortion. But the woman, Jennie Linn McCormack of Pocatello, sued the state in federal court, challenging the constitutionality of Idaho's abortion restrictions.