Idaho GOP overwhelmingly rejects adding abortion exceptions to save the life of the mother to platform

17 July 2022

The Idaho Republican Party's delegates on Saturday convened to finalize its platform and by a nearly three-to-one margin voted against granting exceptions to abortion to save the life of the mother.

The tally was 412-164, The Tennessee Holler's Ruth Brown noted on Twitter.

According to The Idaho Statesman's reporting, "the party supports the criminalization of all abortions within the state’s jurisdiction and said Idaho’s Constitution should be amended to include a 'declaration of the right to life for preborn children.'" Miscarriages were not criminalized, however.

The paper added that "the platform also 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."

It states:

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

But the Idaho GOP's regressive agenda does not end there.

The delegation declared that it has "the sovereign authority to defy the federal judiciary should they once again propose the fiction that abortion is a federal constitutional right.”

The party's embrace of originalist jurisprudence is no less extreme.

"The platform 'emphatically affirms' that judges have a duty to interpret statutory terms to mean what they conveyed to reasonable people at the time they were written," the Statesman explained.

Moreover, the party proclaimed its support for a repeal of the 16th Amendment, which codified Congress's power to levy income taxes.

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