A federal judge has blocked portions of Idaho’s trigger ban on abortion from taking effect. On Wednesday, District Judge B. Lynn Winmill struck down a provision of Idaho’s law making it a crime for a doctor to provide abortion care to a pregnant person facing medical emergency. Federal law requires hospitals participating in Medicare to provide abortions when a person’s life is at risk.
The remainder of Idaho’s near-total abortion ban takes effect today — the same day that trigger bans affecting millions of people also go into effect in Texas and Tennessee. Two months after the Supreme Court struck down Roe v. Wade, one in three U.S. women don’t have access to abortion in their states.