Mirror, Mirror On The Wall, Who's The 'Draconianest' Of Them All?

It's Idaho, isn't it? Yep, Idaho's the leader in the clubhouse.

The accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive, and judiciary, in the same hands, whether of one, a few, or many, and whether hereditary, self-appointed, or elective, may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny.

• James Madison

We all knew it was a matter of time, right? We could’ve taken bets on which red state would’ve been the first one to pass a law criminalizing traveling out-of-state to seek an abortion, and there would’ve been no bad choices.

The odds would’ve been at least a toss-up among numerous states looking to turn back the clock. For those who’ve had Idaho on your “Draconian Anti-Woman Bingo 2023” Bingo card…well, I’m not sure what you’ve won. But I do know what the women of Idaho have lost.

That would be yet another measure of the agency and knowledge that their bodies are their own. So, yes, if you’re a woman living in Idaho, the state legislature is putting you on notice: “All your uterus are belong to us!1!!11!!1!”

In Idaho's latest bid to out-draconian all other states' anti-abortion laws, the Idaho House is on track to pass the nation's very first ban on pregnant minors traveling to other states to get an abortion. The bill, Idaho HB 242, would create a brand new crime called "abortion trafficking," defined thusly:

An adult who, with the intent to conceal an abortion from the parents or guardian of a pregnant, unemancipated minor, either procures an abortion [...] or obtains an abortion-inducing drug for the pregnant minor to use for an abortion by recruiting, harboring, or transporting the pregnant minor within this state commits the crime of abortion trafficking.

The brilliantly sneaky thing about the law is that it doesn't explicitly ban minors from leaving the state to get an abortion, which could end up in sticky multi-jurisdictional litigation. But because virtually all abortions in Idaho are already illegal, the law doesn't actually require someone to cross state lines with a pregnant minor to get an abortion. Rather, it's enough to be "transporting" the minor in the direction of Oregon or Washington, or to an Idaho airport, with the intent of getting an abortion.

The law also prohibits any adult who's not a parent or guardian from obtaining abortion medications for a minor. Yes, it would very much penalize other nonparental family members, like an older sibling or a single aunt who listens to Indigo Girls on her Subaru Forrester's audio system.

So Idaho has gone and created a whole new class of criminals. Let’s hope they’ve budgeted sufficiently for the new prisons they’ll have to build. Or perhaps they’ll sentence the miscreants to serve as characters on episodes of Naked and Afraid. They’ll be dropped sans-culottes by helicopter somewhere in the remote northern Rockies near the Canadian border, where they’ll fight bears and each other in hopes of surviving without food or clothing.

Welcome to 21st century Christianity, eh?

Or why not just recreate the “Romans v. Lions” spectacles? Just think of the tourist dollars that Idaho could generate, eh?

In their drive to keep Idaho girls barefoot and pregnant, the state’s legislature appears to be casting a wide net for ways to criminalize abortion or assisting with obtaining an abortion. Who knows? The next step might involve criminalizing thinking about abortion.

David Cohen, a law prof at Drexel University in Philadelphia, told HuffPost that the Idaho lawmakers who drafted the Fugitive Uterus Act were, if not exactly clever, at least possessed of a certain low cunning.

"Technically, they’re not criminalizing people driving in Washington state with a minor. The crime is the time that someone is driving the minor in Idaho. [...]

"They’re going to say what they’re doing is just criminalizing actions that take place completely within Idaho, but in practice what they’re criminalizing is the person helping the minor."

The bill's sponsor, state Rep. Barbara Ehart, happily acknowledged to HuffPost that the bill was aimed at preventing Idaho minors from seeking abortion care outside the state, explaining that

"It’s already illegal to get an abortion here in the state of Idaho. [...] So, it would be taking that child across the border, and if that happens without the permission of the parent, that’s where we’ll be able to hold accountable those that would subvert a parent’s right."

Ehart also insisted that she wouldn't dream of interfering with parental rights, at least not until that seems likely to survive a court challenge:

"A parent absolutely still has the right to take their child across the border and get an abortion,” Ehardt added. “The parent still has the right to cede that power and authority to someone else, such as a grandparent or an aunt, to take that child, should they be pregnant, across the border and get an abortion."

We'll just assume she then faked a coughing fit and muttered "For now."

For now. Indeed.

I don’t think it’s an overstatement to say that there’s no dignity in being a woman in a red state today, especially a woman of childbearing age. Not only are your reproductive functions not wholly your own, but the state is also increasingly able to determine what you can do, who you can do it with, and where you can go. It can even decide whether you’ll be allowed to leave the state.

Of course, we don’t yet know how many of these draconian “Welcome to Gilead” laws will stand up in court, but if you throw enough of them against the wall, at least a few are bound to stick.

I have to assume that women comprise roughly half the population of red states, as they do most everywhere else. So how is it that anti-women Republicans keep getting elected there? Unless women really do have a thing about voting against their self-interest.

State Senate Minority Leader Melissa Wintrow (D-Boise)…told HuffPost that HB 242 is only one part of an overall Republican strategy of incrementally piling on any abortion restrictions they think they can get past the courts.

"The far right has an incremental plan. It’s death by a thousand cuts on many things, but they’re especially unrelenting on abortion. [...] My colleagues are just rabid about denying all access to abortion care. It’s really harmful to women, and it’s harmful to our state."

HuffPost also points out that the Idaho bill was copied "nearly word for word from a model law published by the National Right to Life Committee," and then written up for Ehart by the Idaho affiliate of the national group.

And of course, for all the talk of "parental rights" and making sure pregnant teens aren't spirited out of the state by an evil adult 'bortion trafficker, HuffPost points out that

Studies show that requiring parental involvement can increase the risk of harm or abuse, delay care and lead minors to seek out dangerous alternatives. The risk of abuse is especially acute for LGBTQ kids.

Still, that shouldn't be a problem, since Idaho's already working to make LGBTQ+ teens illegal as well, the end.

It’s not exactly breaking news that “parental rights” has nothing to do with parents or rights. They’re just buzzwords employed to make the gullible and easily propagandized believe that Republicans are looking out for parents’ rights to care for their children. In the same way that “Right to work” states have nothing to do with the right to work.

It’s all just so much bullshit, brought to you courtesy of red-state Republicans.

All the GOP cares about is figuring out new and ever-more draconian ways to deter women and girls from having abortions. Yeah, it’s SO much easier to keep the little ladies under lock and key if you can keep ‘em barefoot and pregnant.

Of course, the right to cross state lines is enshrined in the Constitution, so that might be a tough nut for Republicans and the National Right to Life Committee (NRLC) to crack. But NRLC has been nothing if not patient and persistent. They’ve absorbed numerous setbacks over the years and relentlessly maintained their dogged persistence in their fight against abortion rights.

NRLC doesn’t want women exercising control over their reproductive functions. They don’t want women to think for themselves. They know that when women begin to think for themselves, trouble isn’t far behind. Inedpendent thought too often leads to women asking all manner of uncomfortable questions.

It’s so much easier if you can keep them barefoot and pregnant. And how better to do that than by turning red states into Gilead and making women's reproductive functions the property and purview of the state?

In the current race to the bottom, Idaho currently leads as the red state with the most draconian anti-abortion laws. We’ll see which laws stand up in court, but being a young woman in a red state can’t be comfortable these days.

And you can bet that Idaho won’t be the only state to pass laws like this.

Mirror, mirror, on the wall…who’s the draconianest…most draconian…draconianerest..well, you know what I mean.

Any way you look at it, Idaho’s definitely the leader in the clubhouse.

That’s not something to be proud of.