Idaho GOP Rejects Exception to Abortion Ban to Save Life of the Mother in Amendment to State Party Platform

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Idaho’s Republican Party amended its official platform to criminalize all abortions in the state during the state’s GOP convention over the weekend.

The new platform includes language that furthers the party’s previous position which called abortion “murder” from the point of conception.

In a move that is sure to stir controversy, the party’s delegates voted 412-164 to reject an amendment to the platform that would allow for abortions if the mother’s life were in “lethal danger.”

“We affirm that abortion is murder from the moment of fertilization. All children should be protected regardless of the circumstances of conception, including persons conceived in rape and incest,” the platform now reads.

Scott Herndon, a GOP Idaho state senate candidate, spoke against the amendment to protect the mother’s life, saying, “For the last 49 years we have essentially lost the argument in the culture because we have focused on abortion as the termination of a pregnancy and not the termination of a living human being.”

“We will never win this human rights issue, the greatest of our time, if we make allowances for the intentional killing of another human being,” he said according to the Idaho Capital Sun. Herndon is running unopposed in the deep red state.

The Capital Sun also noted that the GOP platform includes “a new section saying the party believes parents, not the state, have a sacred duty and right to rear their children in the manner they see fit. It also said the party believes a child’s gender assigned at birth to be an essential characteristic of identity and purpose.”

“We call upon parents, responsible citizens, and officers of government to promote measures that respect and protect the biological gender of children,” the platform says. “We strongly oppose any person, entity or policy that attempts to confuse minors regarding their biological gender.”

Idaho is currently one of thirteen U.S. states with trigger laws in place that would strictly limit if not fully ban abortion in the absence of Roe v. Wade. Arkansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, and Wyoming are the other twelve.

The current abortion restrictions law in Idaho has exceptions for rape, incest and to save the mother’s life, exceptions which Herndon has vowed to remove in the next legislative session if he is elected.