On [March 14], the Idaho House passed Senate Bill 1309, which, like in Texas, would prevent pregnant people from obtaining abortions after six weeks.
Idaho’s spin? Rather than empowering any old private citizens to sue to enforce the law, it specifically allows family members of the fetus—including family members of rapists— to sue abortion providers for up to four years after the procedure, for a minimum of $20,000 in damages.
While Idaho has so humanely said that the rapists themselves could not sue, under the proposed legislation, they could get their parents and siblings to do so, as well as the would-be brothers and sisters of the fetus in question.
Oh, and apparently nothing in the bill would prevent a rapist with, say, 10 siblings from having every single one of them sue individually and then collecting their cash.
But of course, provisions like these aren’t really about actual lawsuits, they’re about the threat of lawsuits, which Idaho Republicans are no doubt hoping will scare clinics into no longer performing the procedure.
The bill now goes to Governor Brad Little’s desk, where he is expected to sign it (last year Little signed a similar “fetal heartbeat” bill into law).
