Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) said Wednesday that Idaho Attorney General Raúl Labrador, working with ADF attorneys, asked the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit for an emergency stay pending appeal after an Idaho federal district court blocked enforcement of the state’s pro-life laws in Seyb v. Labrador.
ADF’s characterization of the ruling
According to ADF, the district court became the first federal court since the Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision to “find” a new federal constitutional right to abortion. In an excerpt ADF attributed to the emergency motion, the filing argues the court “has become the first to re-constitutionalize abortion,” and that its injunctions “defy Dobbs, create expansive rights based on a doctor’s subjective assessment of risk, and contradict the vast history of state prohibitions on ‘therapeutic’ abortions.”
ADF further contends the ruling allows physicians to decide—based on their personal judgment—what maternal health risks justify abortion, asserting the court even intimated that the risk of a C-section could qualify. ADF also claims the ruling permits abortions based on professed mental-health concerns.
What Idaho’s AG and ADF say is at stake
“States have the strongest possible interest in protecting the most fundamental of our human rights—the right to life. Nothing in the federal Constitution grants a right to take innocent, unborn life,” ADF Senior Counsel and Vice President of Appellate Advocacy John Bursch said in the group’s release. “We’re urging the court to respect Idahoans’ desire to protect life, which Attorney General Labrador has fought so courageously to defend.”
“Idaho’s Defense of Life Act protects both mothers and their unborn children,” Labrador said. “The U.S. Supreme Court was clear in Dobbs that there is no constitutional right to abortion and that states have full authority to protect unborn life. That authority rests with the people of Idaho through their elected representatives. We will defend that law as far as needed.”
ADF also asserts that Idaho’s maternal mortality rate has declined since the state’s pro-life laws took effect, and argues the district court’s injunction undermines those protections.
What’s next
ADF says the state has asked the 9th Circuit to stay the district court’s injunction while the appeal proceeds in Seyb v. Labrador.
