A federal judge has ruled that Idaho cannot prosecute doctors who perform abortions to protect a pregnant patient's health or to prevent her from taking her own life, cracking open one of the strictest abortion bans in the country.

U.S. District Judge B. Lynn Winmill issued the 81-page decision Thursday, finding that Idaho's "Defense of Life Act" and "Fetal Heartbeat Act" — which together ban nearly all abortions except to prevent a mother's death or in limited rape and incest cases — violate the due process and equal protection guarantees of the 14th Amendment when a pregnancy threatens a patient's health rather than her life outright. The Idaho Capital Sun reports that Winmill wrote the amendments establish "a narrow but fundamental right to abortion when a pregnancy threatens the woman's life or health."

The case was brought in 2024 by Dr. Stacy Seyb, a maternal-fetal medicine specialist at St. Luke's Health System in Boise, who testified that Idaho's laws left him unable to offer abortions to patients facing serious complications, fatal fetal diagnoses or dangerous multi-fetal pregnancies without risking his own prosecution. A weeklong trial in Boise this June featured testimony from Seyb and other OB-GYNs and maternal-fetal specialists describing cases where they said the law forced them to delay care until patients' conditions became life-threatening.

"A PREGNANT WOMAN'S HEALTH IS NOT A STATE RESOURCE" TO BE RATIONED BY LAWMAKERS, JUDGE WINMILL WROTE.

Steep Penalties, Now Paused

Under the laws as written, physicians who perform abortions outside the narrow exceptions face loss of their medical license and up to five years in prison. A separate Idaho statute also allows extended family members of the fetus to sue providers directly, with a minimum of $20,000 in damages. Winmill's injunction blocks enforcement of the criminal provisions against doctors acting to protect a patient's health, though it does not strike the underlying laws down entirely.

Idaho Attorney General Raul Labrador said the state would appeal immediately, telling reporters he was "confident this decision will be overturned" and that abortion policy belongs with elected lawmakers, not federal judges, according to the Associated Press. The case is expected to head to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, with both sides anticipating it could ultimately reach the Supreme Court given the split among states over how "life of the mother" exceptions should be defined and enforced.

Seyb said the ruling means he can now counsel patients with serious medical conditions about ending a pregnancy without fearing prosecution, and without having to refer them out of state for care he says he is qualified to provide himself. Idaho has had a near-total abortion ban in effect since Roe v. Wade was overturned in 2022, and providers have reported an exodus of OB-GYNs and closures of labor-and-delivery units in rural parts of the state amid the legal uncertainty.

The ruling lands as similar health-exception fights play out in courts in other states with strict abortion bans, where doctors and patients have brought comparable challenges arguing that vague "life of the mother" language has left physicians afraid to act until patients are near death. Idaho's appeal is expected to be filed within 30 days, and the state has signaled it may also seek an emergency stay of Winmill's order while the appeal proceeds.