Prop 1 would give women the primary voice in pregnancy decisions

Proposition 1 on the ballot in Idaho this November guarantees women the primary voice in pregnancy decisions (with guardrails).

One anti-Prop 1 organization says: “Prop 1 permits any health care providers — who are not doctors — to perform abortions. … This definition is broad enough to include healthcare providers who aren’t doctors — and even abortion clinic employees.”

Prop 1 actually defines a health care provider narrowly as a “licensed person or an entity that provides health care or medical treatment.” Licensed providers must operate within a “scope of practice.” A dentist must be licensed but cannot give abortions. At clinics only physicians are allowed to provide surgical abortions — it's within their scope of practice; nurses medical assistants, counselors, and administrators cannot.

Abortion is a complicated, emotional and painful decision. Who should make it? You and your best girlfriend? You and your doctor? You and your pastor? Your parents? The father of the pregnancy and your best girlfriend and your mother and your doctor and your pastor?

Or legislators in Boise?

Read Prop 1. It's only five pages long. We have a right to make a law when the Idaho Legislature makes one we don't like. We all get to vote. And talk to your friends about Prop 1, or your doctor, or your pastor, or your wife, or your daughter…

NANCY GERTH

Sagle