Senator Murray: “What this new law says to young Idaho women is: ‘you don’t have a right to control your own body in this state—and don’t you dare try to get the care you need elsewhere.’”
(Washington, DC) – Today, U.S. Senator Patty Murray (D-WA), issued the following statement on Idaho’s new law that bars minors from traveling across state lines to seek abortion care without parental consent—and criminalizes the act of helping minors seek the care they need.
Idaho’s new law, which was signed into law last night and now takes effect in 29 days, makes it a felony to assist a minor in seeking abortion care without parental consent—threatening, for example, an aunt with up to five years in prison for driving her 16-year-old niece to Washington state to get abortion care.
“Last night, the Governor of Idaho signed into law a bill preventing young women in Idaho from exercising their constitutional right to travel to get the legal abortion care they need.
“As if denying women the ability to get the abortion care they need in their own state were not awful enough, Idaho has now gone further—holding young women captive in their own state and threatening anyone who might help them get the care they need with time in prison.
“This law is an appalling attack on the rights of Idaho women—and our most basic right as Americans to travel freely within our country.
“What this new law says to young Idaho women is: ‘you don’t have a right to control your own body in this state—and don’t you dare try to get the care you need elsewhere.’
“Last summer, I warned that Republican lawmakers would try to pass just this type of law, and I introduced legislation to fend off their attacks and protect every American’s constitutional right to travel across state lines to get the care they need. But Republicans blocked the bill.
“We cannot grow numb to Republicans’ nonstop attacks on our rights. We cannot accept this as the new normal—and the American people have made clear they won’t either. I’m going to keep fighting back with everything I’ve got to put an end to this madness and restore every woman’s right to make her own health care decisions.”
Last summer, in the wake of the Dobbs decision, Senator Murray introduced the Freedom to Travel for Health Care Act with several of her Democratic colleagues in the Senate to protect every woman’s constitutional right to travel across states lines to receive abortion care—and protect the providers who care for them—as Republicans made clear their intent to restrict the right to travel. Senator Murray then sought to pass the commonsense bill to protect Americans’ fundamental right to travel across state lines—but Republican Senator James Lankford (R-OK) blocked the legislation.
Since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, Senator Murray has led the fight in Congress to fight back and protect Americans’ fundamental rights. At a hearing she chaired right in the immediate aftermath of the Dobbs decision, Senator Murray warned of the chaos, confusion, and harm the decision and Republicans’ extreme policies would cause. And in the months that have followed, Senator Murray has introduced and fought to pass commonsense legislation to protect the right to contraception, protect every American’s right to travel for abortion care, protect doctors’ right to provide legal abortion care, expand our national family planning program, protect the right to build a family through assisted reproductive technology, and more. She led her colleagues at the very outset of this Congress to make crystal clear that Senate Democrats are continuing to fight to protect every American’s reproductive rights and will be a firewall against House Republicans’ continued attacks on our rights—and that’s exactly what she’s doing now. Senator Murray recently helped lead 48 of her colleagues in reintroducing the Women’s Health Protection Act.
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