Lawsuit over abortion reporting rules dismissed

A federal lawsuit over abortion reporting requirements has been dismissed after lawmakers tweaked the law to remove some unconstitutionally vague language.

U.S. District Judge David Nye granted the dismissal this week after the Idaho Attorney General’s office and attorneys for Planned Parenthood of the Great Northwest and the Hawaiian Islands asked to have the case closed.

The abortion reporting rules enacted by the Idaho Legislature in 2018 required doctors, hospitals and clinics to report to the state if a woman who previously had an abortion experienced any medical conditions on a long list of things that lawmakers deemed to be “abortion complications.”

This year, lawmakers updated the law to clarify that the medical conditions were reportable if health care practitioners believed they were an abnormal event caused by the abortion rather than simply an “indirect result” of the procedure.