As your Prosecuting Attorney in Bannock County, my commitment is to uphold not only the law but also the fundamental rights and health of our residents. The recent Total Abortion Ban, passed in 2020, presents unprecedented challenges that affect real people in our community— especially doctors. The law now criminalizes terminating a pregnancy, with no exceptions to safeguard the health or future fertility of the mother. This rigid legal framework has put our healthcare providers in an untenable position, where they must choose between making medically necessary decisions and facing criminal charges.
In this context, it is more critical than ever that we interpret our laws in a way that protects public health and respects the professional judgment of our medical community. Therefore, my office will prioritize compassion and medical ethics by exercising prosecutorial discretion. We will not prosecute healthcare professionals who perform abortions when necessary to save the life or protect the health of the mother. This approach does not just follow legal precedence but responds to a moral imperative to ensure our healthcare system remains responsive and humane. The departure of qualified medical professionals from Idaho and the increasing challenges in accessing necessary medical care underscore the urgency of this issue. Our community deserves a balanced approach where the law is not used as a tool against those who strive to save lives. To the residents of Bannock County, I assure you that my office will always strive to make informed, compassionate, and just decisions that consider the well-being of all community members, fostering an environment of trust and safety in our healthcare systems and judicial process.
My commitment is to keep police investigations and criminal prosecutions out of emergency medical decisions between a woman and her doctor.
The Issue:
Enacted in 1986, the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act (EMTALA) requires any hospital with an emergency room that receives Medicare funds (virtually all hospitals) to provide stabilizing treatment to anyone who comes to the hospital experiencing an emergency medical condition. Following the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2022 decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, one of the most restrictive abortion bans in the country went into effect in Idaho. Idaho’s abortion statute is in violation of EMTALA and does not allow emergency doctors to provide women with an abortion unless she is at death's door. It does not consider serious health risks to the woman, including future infertility.
As a result of this ban, medical providers have found themselves having to decide between providing necessary emergency care to a pregnant patient and facing criminal prosecution from the state, or declining medical care and leaving a patient in crisis while facing federal sanctions for violating EMTALA. Idaho’s current statute conflicts with a doctor's duty of care and does not take into account the broad scope of severe medical complications women can face during pregnancy, including loss of fertility.
If a doctor is prosecuted under Idaho’s abortion law, they face 5 YEARS in prison and could have their medical license suspended or revoked.
Since Idaho’s abortion ban took effect, Idaho has lost 1 in 5 (22%) obstetricians and gynecologists who have chosen to leave the state and practice elsewhere, which has led to hospital obstetrics programs around the state shuttering their doors. The workforce shortage has been exacerbated by doctors’ confusion about how to practice medicine under Idaho’s abortion ban. Women are being life flighted out of state to get basic emergency medical care.
Medical professionals, from the American College of Emergency Physicians and American Hospital Association to the American Medical Association and the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, have underscored that doctors must be able to provide their patients with the emergency abortion care they need.
What is prosecutorial discretion?
Simply put, prosecutors have a duty to seek justice. With that duty comes the authority to bring criminal charges. Prosecutors are not required to seek criminal prosecution if justice would not be served. It came to be out of practical and financial necessity. Laws are broken every day and governments don’t have the time or money to prosecute everyone. A county attorney has to make the decision about which crimes need more attention.
Each charging decision involves weighing the facts of a case, the law of a case and making a decision about the appropriate charge. At that point, deciding between several potential charges involves discretion, and that decision is tremendous. The decision to not charge is one example of prosecutorial discretion.
My Promise:
I will not prosecute doctors' decisions when they are to save the life OR the health of the woman. Doctors and medical providers in Bannock County will know that the County Prosecutor is not going to send them to prison or try to strip them of their medical license.
My goal in making this promise unequivocally is to:
Stop the exodus of our county healthcare providers.
Assure doctors that they will not be prosecuted for providing women with emergency medical procedures.
Assure women of Bannock County that they will not need to be life flighted out of state to receive the same emergency care they can get here.
To encourage people to have families and feel safe to do so while living in Idaho.