Our View: House Bill 242 is a threat to Idaho security

The “abortion trafficking bill” is another move by the pro-life community to control Idaho

Idaho’s war against abortion is impacting the lives of both those seeking abortions as well as maternal health care, jeopardizing Idaho women.

The Gem State has a long and complicated relationship with abortion and women’s bodily autonomy. That relationship had been made even more complex with the passing of House Bill 242, nicknamed the “abortion trafficking law” by those who support it. Gov. Brad Little signed the bill into law on Wednesday evening.

Sen. Melissa Wintrow, a Democrat from Boise, calls the bill “one of the ugliest attacks on women’s reproductive rights,” in an interview with The Argonaut. She likened the atmosphere to George Orwell’s “1984” and Margaret Atwood’s “The Handmaid’s Tale.”

With HB 242, women under the age of 18 could be prosecuted if they obtain an abortion without parental consent. Furthermore, any person who assists a woman in getting an abortion without parental permission can also be prosecuted. The doctor who performs an illegal abortion by Idaho standards can also be sued by family members of the aborted fetus, even if the abortion was performed in a state where it is legal, like in the bordering states of Washington and Oregon.

The day prior to the bill’s signing, Washington Gov. Jay Inslee urged Little to veto the bill.

“Make no mistake, Governor Little, the laws of another state that seek to punish anyone in Washington for lawful actions taken in Washington will not stand,” Inslee wrote in a letter to Little. “We will protect our providers, and we will harbor and comfort your residents who seek health care services that are denied to them in Idaho.”

Inslee raises an important point in that Idaho is actively scaring off health care providers.

Idaho is suffering from a lack of OBGYN physicians, which has resulted in two hospitals, Bonner General Hospital in Sandpoint and Valor Health in Emmett, closing their labor and delivery units. This means soon-to-be mothers will be forced to travel hundreds of miles in order to deliver their babies.

The reason for these closures is the political climate. Many physicians do not feel safe making decisions for their patients, not because of abortion access, but because they are no longer able to safely advise their patients with pregnancy complications.

The bill allows family members of the aborted fetus to sue physicians for $20,000, creating an even more precarious situation physicians must operate under.

Instances in which an abortion may be legal are when it is necessary in saving the mother’s life. The exception to this is when the threat to the mother’s life is mental health related. A physician will also be free from civil action if they “provided the best opportunity for the unborn child to survive.”

The bill also clarifies that if a woman over the age of 18 reports an instance of rape or incest and provides a copy of the police report to a physician, she will not be prosecuted for “criminal abortion.”

A concern raised by those against the bill, like Planned Parenthood and Wintrow, is that this is the first bill in the United States to criminally charge adults who aid minors seeking an abortion.

Rep. Barbara Ehardt, a Republican from Idaho Falls, said parents can still aid their child in getting an abortion.

“This legislation does not prevent parents from taking their child across the border to get an abortion,” Ehardt said in an interview with The Argonaut. She added that the bill also allows parents to cede this right to another adult, who can now help a minor get an abortion across state lines.

The bill states that any person who “commits the crime of abortion trafficking” will serve between two to five years in prison.

Regarding a pregnancy as a result of rape or incest, “Your first inclination should not be “hey, let’s get an abortion,’” Ehardt said. “Your first inclination should be to go

Students crave freedom from standardized testing

Many institutions are against tests like the SAT and ACT, but the federal government still requires students take them

Standardized tests are enjoyed by none, yet most institutions offering higher education still require them.

The SAT and ACT are rival testing companies, yet thousands of students each year opt to take both. Many colleges and universities use the tests to determine the level of course a student should take as well as what advisor the student may benefit from. While these may sound like good things, many students find the two tests irrelevant and irritating.

According to the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development, standardized testing diminishes the overall approach to education by shifting away from experience-based learning and towards rote memorization.

The pandemic resulted in many institutions temporarily suspending their standardized testing requirement, including the University of Idaho. This was due to the diminished accessibility of testing centers and reduced number of proctors for the exams.

With many institutions adapting to the new world the pandemic has created, these limitations are less prevalent. This raises the question of whether colleges and universities will reinstate the required SAT, ACT and other standardized tests.

Students aren’t the only ones who oppose the tests, even teachers have a disdain for them.

Many of these tests are tied to outcomes like school funding, graduation and college acceptance. This places an immense amount of stress on a student, which can take a toll on their academic performance, leaving teachers to try and pick up the pieces.

Due to these tests being viewed as having such high stakes, they often drive what is taught in the classroom. This takes away the teacher’s autonomy in the classroom, while also removing all creativity and substituting it with memorization.

Standardized tests plague many schools, but there are some that have broken the mold and refuse the tests.

In 2021, an organization called FairTest took to demanding that standardized testing no longer be federally mandated. They adopted the motto “testing is not teaching,” in order to get their point across.

Additionally, the

Every Student Succeeds Act is a federal act that recognizes parents’ rights to have their kids opt-out of standardized testing. As of Feb. 2018, ten states have implemented these opt-out laws, with Idaho being one of them.

FairTest seeks to educate the community about resources, like the ESSA, that can help phase out standardized testing.

In 2021, the Biden Administration released a statement saying that standardized testing must continue, their reasoning being that schools and parents alike need to see how the pandemic has impacted their students’ learning.

Many schools, parents, teachers and states have acknowledged the need to understand the pandemic’s impact on learning, but most feel there are better ways to accomplish this.

One alternative to standardized testing is the use of portfolios; by helping students compile a portfolio, their strengths, accomplishments and skills could be more accurately represented. This would provide educational institutions with a more accurate view as to what an individual student can bring to their institution.

Another alternative would be assessing schools and students through multiple measures, rather than the one test. By measuring schools based on graduation rates, demographics, teacher assessments and lowstakes tests schools and the organizations that fund them will be able to get a more holistic and accurate depiction of the school.

Standardized tests were once a valuable tool used to help students, teachers and institutions to succeed. Now, they are creating more problems than benefits and need to be replaced.

Makenzie Davidson can be reached at arg-opinion@uidaho.edu or on Twitter @makenzie_films to the police.”

In response to that statement, Wintrow said that Idaho is trying to dictate what an individual should and should not do.

“No one can tell an individual what their first inclination should be,” Wintrow said.

This bill assumes that young girls are comfortable telling their parents and the police that they have experienced sexual assault and are now in need of an abortion. The Justice Department estimates that 80% of sexual assaults across the country go unreported.

HB 242 is willfully ignorant to this fact and will punish those who respect the privacy and safety of young girls and women in Idaho.

The Idaho pro-life movement vocalizes their disdain for abortion because it takes away an opportunity for new life, yet bills written and sponsored by members of that community only do harm to resources that are meant to be lifesaving.

In the words of Wintrow, the proponents of pro-life legislation like HB 242 are “anti-choice, anti-freedom, and anti-(self) determination.”

The continued attack on reproductive health care is damaging Idaho and will lead to an increase in unsafe abortions, often resulting in irreversible harm.

Mountain Thoughts

A symbol of hope, beavers are bouncing back

Nearly eradicated in the 1800s, conservationists are helping beavers

The U.S. government is looking to an unlikely rodent in an effort to repair ravaged riparian ecosystems, and it might be working.

Beavers are one of the odder species, in terms of appearance. With their long buckteeth, paddle tail and rounded shape, they don’t often attract sympathy from the owners of the land they choose to settle down on.

Due to unregulated trapping in the 1800s, beavers were largely eradicated from the U.S. This had cascading effects on the ecosystems they once called home. Beavers, as “ecosystem engineers,” change their environment in ways that promote a healthy ecosystem. With beavers gone, the riparian, or water based, ecosystems they frequented were in trouble.

Many other animals rely on the work beavers do to remain healthy. Without beavers, fish populations, predators, birds, amphibians and even the plants lining water banks were suffering.

Since 2008, the Okanogan-Wenatchee National Forest has been reintroducing beavers to various areas in order to promote riparian health. According to the United States Department of Agriculture, the project has documented an increase in salmonid spawning and rearing as a result of the beavers’ presence.

In Idaho there are between 50 and 75 beaver restoration projects currently operational. These projects either directly introduce beavers to damaged riparian areas or have biologists build dam-like structures in order to encourage beaver populations to return to those areas.

The U.S. has a history of killing off vital species, directly resulting in whole ecosystems decaying; a cursory examination of the history at Yellowstone National Park can attest to that. The eradication of wolves, grizzly bears, mountain lions and, of course, beavers have all resulted in the lack of riparian vegetation, predatory species and healthy landscapes.

It brings hope to the environmental community seeing these restoration projects underway, reversing the damage once done to the American landscape. Recent legislation, like Idaho’s SB 1211 and Utah’s HB 469, attempt to undo some of those efforts, but biologists and conservationists are not so easily deterred.

The beaver represents a great success in conservation; once nearly extinct, there are now almost 15 million in North America alone thanks to supremely dedicated conservationists.