By Jonathan Stempel
(Reuters) -Idaho, which has a near-total ban on abortion, agreed not to prosecute or take away licenses of doctors who refer patients out of state to obtain the procedure, under a consent decree approved by a federal judge on Thursday.
The decree prevents Idaho’s Republican Attorney General Raul Labrador and county prosecutors from prosecuting healthcare providers who refer, counsel or otherwise provide information to patients seeking abortions in other states.
A local Planned Parenthood affiliate sued Idaho in April 2023 to block enforcement, after Labrador said the referrals could violate state law and require license suspensions for doctors who make them.
Planned Parenthood said the restriction violated the U.S. Constitution by infringing doctors’ First Amendment free speech rights and regulating lawful out-of-state reproductive health services.
A federal appeals court blocked enforcement last December. During oral arguments, a lawyer for Labrador said the attorney general would not prosecute people for making the referrals.
Idaho makes it a crime to perform or attempt to perform abortions, or for healthcare providers to assist in abortions, with narrow exceptions.
The decree covering Planned Parenthood and two doctors was approved by U.S. District Judge B. Lynn Winmill in Boise.
“Idaho’s strong pro-life laws remain fully in effect, and we remain proud to defend the rights of mothers and their unborn children,” Labrador said in a statement.
“This settlement simply affirms what our office already made clear in court: we do not have the authority to prosecute referrals for out-of-state services.”
Rebecca Gibron, chief executive of Planned Parenthood Great Northwest, Hawaii, Alaska, Indiana, Kentucky, said in a statement that the decree “affirms something every patient deserves: open, honest care from a provider they trust.”
The U.S. Supreme Court eliminated the federal constitutional right to abortion in 2022, overturning the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision.
Eighteen Republican-led states have total abortion bans or ban abortions at or before the 12th week of pregnancy, according to the nonprofit Guttmacher Institute, which focuses on reproductive health.
(Reporting by Jonathan Stempel in New York, Editing by Alexia Garamfalvi and Richard Chang)
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