BOISE, Idaho (AP) — Idaho continued its campaign against abortion with Gov. C.L. “Butch” Otter signing legislation into law Thursday that will increase reporting requirements for providers.
Otter signed the bill just two days after approving a measure that would require women seeking abortions to be informed that the drug-induced procedures can be halted halfway, despite opposition from medical groups that say there is little evidence to support that claim.
The move follows a national trend among Republican-dominant statehouses in finding new ways to test the legal ability to restrict a woman’s right to terminate a pregnancy.
Some of the personal information required in the new Idaho measure is already collected by the state’s health and welfare agency. However, starting July 1, providers will be required by law to report details such as woman’s age, race, how many children she has, if any of their children have died and how many abortions they’ve had in the past.
Otter approved the measure without comment.
The bill outlines a list of abortion complications - such as infection, blood clots and hemorrhaging - that providers, hospitals and clinics must report to the Idaho Department of Health and Welfare. Depression, anxiety and sleeping disorders are also on the list.
The state would compile the information for an annual report and make it available to the Legislature and the public, but identifying information would not be disclosed.
Similar proposals have been introduced this year in Indiana and Arizona. At least 20 states have such laws on the books, though the amount of detail that must be reported varies, according to the Guttmacher Institute, which opposes abortion restrictions.
The group notes that interest in such laws has spiked after a 2016 U.S. Supreme Court struck down Texas restrictions that had contributed to the shuttering of more than half of the state’s abortion clinics.
At the time, the court found there was insufficient data to justify the restrictions, which required doctors who perform abortions to have admitting privileges at nearby hospitals and forced clinics to meet hospital-like standards.
Idaho courts have also overturned some state laws targeting abortion due to a lack of information about complications surrounding the procedure.
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