Idaho abortion travel ban

Interesting issue. Idaho is probably about the hardest Right state in the union. The Legislature basically outlawed all abortion with a very few narrow exceptions. They also penalized healthcare workers for advising or assisting Idaho citizens to travel put of state for an abortion and criminalized doing so for a minor girl without parental consent. The Legislature terms this "trafficking".

A federal judge has enjoined the state from penalizing health care workers under the right to free speech. It will be interesting to see what the courts make of the rest of the law. Idaho is crazy, has been for a very long time, but I think the minor ban might survive. It appears to be carefully crafted.

 

The Republican party used to stand for personal freedoms and small government. It now stands for big government invading personal freedoms.

These threats by Republicans to obtain and monitor personal medical records is alarming. I hope those type activities are found to be unconstitutional.

 

They might go on regardless. One-track minds, all over. Look at Abbott and the Rio Grande.

 

One Body Found In Rio Grande Floating Barriers, Another Recovered From River As DOJ Sues Texas Over The Buoys
https://www.forbes.com/sites/mollybohannon/2023/08/03/one-body-found-in-rio-grande-floating-barriers-another-recovered-from-river-as-doj-sues-texas-over-the-buoys/?sh=724607d7aa06

On a scale from 1 to 10, how much do we think Abbot cares about the lives of two migrants? Maybe a 2?

 

Right. And how much do we think a whole bunch of people in the "hardest Right state in the union" as @nosborne48 put it, care about the lives of anyone who opposes them, in ANY way.

 

I'm guessing he was hoping they'd float downstream and disappear forever. If you can't see the dead, did they even die?

 

Texas and Idaho - same disease. I don't think the Texas or Idaho Legislatures care spit about any of the State's people, if they disobey the "High Command." Is there a Legislature uniform in the making? High, shiny boots? Peaked cap? Any monocles?

 

I think on the whole Idaho is harder Right than Texas because Texas has large cities that tend left of center. Idaho doesn't. There are no centers of resistance as it were. There ARE moderate Idahoans but there's no geographic concentration. Idaho also flies under the radar. No one notices them most of the time. That's why the Aryan Nation settled there.

 

Definitely true, the five most Republican states are

1. Wyoming with a 25 Republican advantage
2. West Virginia with a 22 Republican advantage
3. North Dakota with a 20 Republican advantage
4. Oklahoma with a 20 Republican advantage
5. Idaho with a 18 Republican advantage
...
22. Texas is way down the on list at 22 with a Republican advantage of only 5

https://worldpopulationreview.com/state-rankings/most-republican-states

 

Oklahoma is the only state on that list with a large metro area, two of them in fact, Oklahoma City and Tulsa. Interesting.

 

Idaho has the second-largest number of Latter-day Saints proportionally after Utah; about one in five Idahoans are Mormon.

Mormon culture is conservative but (a) there are Mormon moderates and liberals, (b) where there are Mormons we can expect ex-Mormons and they can be wild cards (as in Kyrsten Sinema), and (c) even in Mormon conservatism, a notable part is out of step with Trumpism (as in Mitt Romney and Evan McMullin).

 

I'm surprised at how many people live in the Boise metro area now. For as long as I can remember, Spokane WA was the largest metropolitan area between the Cascades and the Twin Cities and north of Salt Lake City. I'm not sure that's true anymore.

 

Nope. It's not. Boise is bigger. How about that!

 

Beautiful country, by the way. Along the Snake River plain. Cold winters, though.

 

Things get a little dull along about Eastern Montana?

 

I think Montanans like it that way ... peaceful. Attracts weekend border-hoppers from Alberta, too, so I've heard.