Democrats are leaving out one crucial detail in criticizing a new law signed by Idaho Gov. Brad Little placing further restrictions on abortions.
The law signed by the Republican governor last week, which takes effect next month, makes it illegal to help girls aged 17 and under get an abortion by supplying them drugs or helping them across state lines to terminate a pregnancy without parental consent.
But the key detail, that the law only applies to unemancipated minors, has been noticeably absent from those fuming about the law online.
“I thought it was crazy that Idaho made it illegal to travel to another state to get an abortion only to look it up and discover they made it illegal for an adult to take a minor across the border for an abortion w/o parental consent,” conservative commentator Matt Shapiro noted on Twitter Tuesday.
IDAHO’S ‘ABORTION TRAFFICKING’ LAW MEANS ADULTS CAN BE LOCKED UP FOR SUPPLYING PILLS TO MINORS
Indeed, many Democrats and progressives are leaving out the “minor” and “parental consent” details from their Twitter rants.
“Not content with banning abortion in red states alone, the GOP is now intent on restricting the ability to travel,” Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., tweeted Monday. “Passing the Freedom to Travel for Health Care Act becomes more essential every day.”
“First, Republicans stripped away the right to an abortion,” Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass, tweeted last week. “Now, they’re trying to end Americans’ right to travel for care. This fight has never been just about abortion. It was always about ending women’s freedom to control their own bodies and futures.”
“Republicans purport to be the party of freedom – but now they want to limit freedom to travel over state lines,” Rep. Pramila Jayapal, D-Wash., tweeted. “It’s time to pass protections to ensure that pregnant people can make their own health care decisions AND travel as they choose.”
“[House Democrats] put #PeopleOverPolitics and passed an infrastructure law to rebuild our roads, bridges, and highways,” tweeted Rep. Ted Lieu, D-Calif. “What are extreme MAGA Republicans focused on? Restricting women’s freedom to travel to receive reproductive health care.”
“Republicans are only ramping up their attacks on women’s reproductive freedoms,” tweeted Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi, D-Ill. “This new law passed by Idaho Republicans will only serve to endanger the lives of women in the state.”
“This is America,” Rep. Angie Craig, D-Minn., tweeted. “We should be free to drive anywhere we want to obtain a service that is legal. GOP politicians have lost their minds.”
House Bill 232, the first of its kind, creates a new crime called “abortion trafficking” and prohibits adults from getting abortion drugs for a minor or “recruiting, harboring or transporting the pregnant minor” across state lines to get an abortion without the consent of a parent or guardian, according to the Associated Press.
To ensure compliance with the constitutional right to travel between states, Idaho’s law specifically targets only the portion of a trip that occurs within the state when seeking abortion services from an out-of-state provider.
“House Bill 242 does not criminalize, preclude, or otherwise impair interstate travel, nor does it limit an adult woman from obtaining an abortion in another state,” Little said in his signing statement.
“Rather the ‘abortion trafficking’ provision in the bill seeks only to prevent unemancipated minor girls from being taken across state lines for an abortion without the knowledge and consent of her parent or guardian,” the governor added.
Fox News Digital’s Jon Brown contributed to this report.
