Idaho residents rejected a ballot measure that would have overturned one of the nation’s strictest abortion bans, according to a projection from Decision Desk HQ.
Proposition 1 would have legalized abortion until the point of fetal viability — typically around 23 to 25 weeks of pregnancy — and created legal protections for reproductive healthcare services such as contraception, fertility treatment and pregnancy-related care.
Its failure means that abortion will continue to be outlawed in virtually all circumstances in Idaho, with only narrow exceptions to save a pregnant person’s life, in the cases of molar or ectopic pregnancies, or if the pregnancy is in the first trimester and the result of rape or incest. The rape or incest has to have been reported to the police.
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Idaho’s strict measure reshaped healthcare in the state, causing doctors to leave in droves. A study published last year found that between August 2022 and December 2024, the state lost more than a third of its 268 OB-GYNs, with many saying they didn’t believe the law let them provide proper healthcare. At least one hospital shut down its labor and delivery ward as a result of the exodus. Some pregnant patients experiencing complications have been airlifted to Utah for medical care.
The Proposition 1 campaign was funded almost entirely by Idaho residents and powered by volunteers across the state — notably women, and in particular mothers and grandmothers concerned about the ban’s consequences for their families. Public opinion research conducted in Idaho last year found that most of the state’s residents, including a plurality of Republicans, supported Proposition 1.
“They didn’t put resources into it early enough,” Celinda Lake, a veteran Democratic pollster, said of the measure’s failure, which drew little financial support or attention from national abortion rights organizations. “I think if we had put resources earlier we could have won.”
But the Republican Party in Idaho has embraced abortion restrictions. This past summer, language adopted by the state party suggested it was open to criminalizing people who end their pregnancies — a position seen as extreme even among abortion opponents.
The state legislature reconvenes in January 2027. It’s not clear yet if lawmakers will push for further restrictions on abortion.
