Idaho ‘Unborn Child’ Protection from ‘Dismemberment Abortion’ Ban (S 1386)

S 1386 would prohibit a person from performing or attempting to perform a “dismemberment abortion” unless it is necessary to prevent serious health risk to the “unborn child’s” mother.

The bills defines “dismemberment abortion” as an abortion, with the purpose of causing the death of an “unborn child,” by dismembering a living “unborn child” by piece or part from the uterus through use of clamps, grasping forceps, tongs, scissors or similar instruments that, at the convergence of two rigid levers, grasp a portion of the “unborn child’s body” to remove it by piece or part from the uterus.

Any physician who performs a “dismemberment abortion” in violation of this provision, would be guilty of a felony, fined up to $10,000 and/or imprisoned for not more than two years.

A person who performs or attempts to perform a “dismemberment abortion” may also face injunction and civil action.

This law targets a procedure known as dilation and evacuation (D and E), which is frequently used during second-trimester abortions. According to the American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, an abortion using suction aspiration can be performed up to 14 weeks’ gestation, but after 14 weeks the D and E procedure must be used to perform an abortion. As such, dilation and evacuation bans, depending upon their language, may ban all surgical abortion past 14 weeks’ gestation. (Source.)

Partial-Birth Abortion Ban

S 1386 would also prohibit any physician from knowingly performing a “partial-birth abortion,” unless it it necessary to save the life of the pregnant patient.

The bill defines “partial-birth abortion” as an abortion in which the person performing the abortion:

• Deliberately and intentionally vaginally delivers a living fetus until, in the case of a head-first presentation, the entire fetal head is outside the body of the mother, or, in the case of breech presentation, any part of the fetal trunk past the navel is outside the body of the mother, for the purpose of performing an overt act that the person knows will kill the partially delivered living fetus; and
• Performs the overt act, other than completion of delivery, that kills the partially delivered living fetus.

Sponsored by the Senate State Affairs Committee.