Idaho activist discusses new ballot initiative to protect abortion access

The campaign aims to present the issue to voters in 2026. They will need to amass 70,000 signatures throughout different parts of the state to qualify.

Idaho activists have geared up to fight for a ballot initiative to appear before voters next year that reestablishes abortion access throughout the state.

Idahoans United for Women and Families, an abortion rights organization, is a nonpartisan coalition seeking to overturn Idaho's abortion ban through a citizens' ballot initiative known as the Reproductive Freedom and Privacy Act. The group faced delays due to legal challenges but recently won a significant court decision. They need to gather 70,000 signatures by April 30, 2026. They hope to get 101,000. The initiative aims to restore personal liberty and medical privacy, with 1,000 volunteers and a focus on door-to-door canvassing. For it to pass, they need 50 percent of voters' support plus one vote once it’s on the ballot.

“We believe that Idahoans will embrace the opportunity to reclaim their right to personal liberty and to make decisions without interference from politicians,” said Melanie Folwell, executive director of the organization.

Idaho has lost 25 percent of its OB-GYNs since the ban, exacerbating healthcare shortages. Last year, a Senate report indicated that one patient a week had to pay for helicopter transport to get a medically needed abortion.

Despite pleas from doctors and medical organizations to address the problem, Idaho’s state legislature didn’t take any action or pass any reforms to adapt its abortion ban. Folwell told me the dire situation that women found themselves in was what compelled her and others to organize the effort. They spent approximately a year and a half researching and collaborating with medical and advocacy groups to develop their initiative.

It’s a new tactic in Idaho’s political sphere. Thus far, the primary recourse for Idaho women and doctors has been through court battles. There have been numerous lawsuits over the state’s abortion ban, including over whether abortions should be permitted in emergency rooms and another that sought to get clarity over when exceptions would be allowed.

In April, a state court expanded the circumstances in which an abortion exception would work to include situations where death could be a risk, and not just an imminent possibility. Lawyers hoped clarifying the laws’ medical exceptions would allow physicians to provide life-saving care without waiting for patients to be near death.

Another lawsuit, Moyle V. United States, challenged Idaho’s abortion ban on the argument that it violated federalism with how it conflicted with the mandates provided by the Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act, which stipulates that doctors in those settings must provide life- and health-saving care. The Department of Justice dropped that lawsuit after Donald Trump became president.

Lawyers for St. Luke’s, Idaho’s largest healthcare provider, filed a lawsuit in January to challenge the law, anticipating that the Trump Administration would drop its case. In March, a federal judge allowed abortions to be performed in emergency rooms, holding that a federal law ensuring medical care trumps a state ban. An injunction is in place as the case will proceed through the legal system.

There were also legal battles over the ballot initiative. Idahoans United for Women and Families submitted a petition against several state officials, including Attorney General Raúl Labrador and the Division of Financial Management (DFM), regarding the fiscal statement and wording of the initiative. The AG and DFM had written the one considered misleading, and the plaintiffs sought to revise it to reflect its actual impact better.

The Idaho Supreme Court ordered DFM and the Attorney General’s office to submit revised versions of the fiscal summary and short ballot title by the beginning of next week, along with a sworn declaration explaining the methodology behind the new fiscal statement.

Folwell told me that they would focus on collecting signatures in densely populated areas. The state is predominantly agricultural, with vast swaths of the countryside remaining unpopulated and large tracts of land separating homes. Places like Boise, Idaho Falls, and Pocatello are key areas to drive up the number of signatures. However, the ballot initiative, like those in other states, requires that they obtain signatures in a certain number of legislative districts, specifically 18 out of 35, throughout the state. That means they have to canvass in some of the more conservative areas and then get a certain percentage of the voting public to sign on.

Currently, the organization is focusing on attracting and training volunteers.

“Broad majorities of Idahoans do not agree with the current ban,” Folwell said. “And it's incumbent on us to get out there and make sure that they understand the ban, what it does, the harm it's causing, and that we can fix this and restore ourselves to the standard that we had in Idaho for five decades.”