BOISE — Idaho’s abortion ballot initiative got one step closer to being put to voters on Thursday as organizers formally submitted more than 108,000 signatures at the Idaho State Capitol. More than 100 crowded into the Capitol rotunda in support of the milestone alongside over a dozen protesting the measure.
Idahoans United for Women and Families Executive Director Melanie Folwell said the measure arrives after the legislature has “failed to act.”
“A quarter of a millennium since our founders declared that government derives its just powers from the consent of the governed,” Folwell said. “That ideal was revolutionary in 1776, and it is revolutionary today.”
The Reproductive Freedom and Privacy Act allows for healthcare decisions, including abortion, to be made up to the point of fetal viability and in medical emergencies. If adopted by voters, it would effectively restore abortion access in Idaho to what it was prior to the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization U.S. Supreme Court decision in 2022, which overturned Roe v. Wade.
That decision prompted Idaho’s trigger ban (so-called as it was set to get into effect if Roe v. Wade were overturned) and saw residents turn to Oregon and Washington for abortion care after the procedure was restricted in almost all cases.
The initiative still allows the state to regulate abortion after the point of fetal viability except in cases of medical emergency. Fetal viability is defined in the initiative as being “the point in pregnancy when … the fetus has a significant likelihood of sustained survival outside of the uterus without extraordinary measures.”
Such determinations are to be made on a case-by-case basis, taking into account the known facts at the time and and the physician’s “good faith medical judgement,” the initiative states.
Idaho’s current law makes abortion illegal outside of incidents of rape, incest and cases where the mother’s life is in danger. In incidents of rape or incest, victims are required to provide a police report to the abortion provider.
Suzanne Gallus, a Kootenai County coordinator for the initiative, Republican and mother of seven, said she did not anticipate organizing for the ballot measure was how she would spend much of her time at age 56, but said her unique depth of experience to spurred her on.
“I’m no stranger to reproductive health and childhood,” Gallus said. “In fact, I’ve been pregnant 12 times and know better than most the number of things that can and do go wrong over the course of a pregnancy. Pregnancy, just like life and faith and everything else, is complicated.”
A lifelong practicing Catholic, Gallus recalled having to grapple with the “intersection” of her faith and Idaho’s abortion ban.
“I found my voice for reproductive justice, including abortion rights, because I am a Catholic, not in spite of it,” she said. “Just like a majority of American Catholics, I believe that access to a full gamut of reproductive care, including contraception and abortion, is socially just.”
Dr. Becky Uranga, an OB-GYN based in Ada County, described her role in the medical field as being a surgeon, delivering babies and otherwise working to keep women healthy. This work places her in some of the “most important days of my patients’ lives, both the good and the bad.”
For Uranga, the initiative represented an opportunity to undo a statute that has come between her and her patients. “This could mean that my fellow colleagues and I can again provide needed care without the risk of criminalization hanging over our heads,” she said.
Under state statute, even the “attempt to perform an abortion” outside of allowed exceptions is a felony and punishable by up to five years in prison along with license suspension and fines. The initiative seeks to change this by making healthcare provided consistent with the act to not be grounds for “professional discipline, civil liability or criminal liability.”
One couple, Desiree and Morgan Ballis, spoke before the crowd Thursday and shared their own story of loss. Desiree Ballis recalled receiving a fatal diagnosis after going in for a 20-week anatomy scan. The trauma of that experience, and the difficulty of navigating Idaho’s abortion laws, was something that “no woman should ever have to navigate,” she said.
Morgan framed the initiative as better aligning the state with limited government principles by letting people, rather than the state, decide how best to apply one’s own religious beliefs.
“Let’s talk about where there is common ground,” Morgan Ballis said, acknowledging those at the Capitol who came to show opposition to the initiative. “Because this is Idaho, and we believe in the same thing — the government has no place in our personal decisions. Period.”
Recent surveying has found most Idahoans are open to changing the state’s strict abortion ban. A 2026 survey from Boise State University’s Idaho Policy Institute found 60% of respondents were supportive of the proposed initiative. This includes support from 92% of Democrats, 63% of Independents and 46% of Republicans, as was previously reported by the Idaho Press.
The issues nonetheless remains contentious in the state and the nation at large. Several protesters carried signs proclaiming “death is not welcome here” and displaying graphic images denouncing abortion. Though not all protesters were part of an organized group, some held signs from the White Rose Resistance, a evangelical anti-abortion advocacy group with a Boise chapter.
Paul Lewer, one of several who came to protest the initiative, likened the stance that the government does not have authority over what we do with our own bodies as being “eerily reminiscent of what southern slave owners said.”
Though supporters of the initiative have couched their positions as returning Idaho to its pre-2022 status quo, Lewer said the state would be returning to the “radical framework” that governed both Idaho and the nation at large as a result of the Roe v. Wade decision.
“The entire country was operating under a radical framework, radically pro death. I think it would be radical if you could own slaves in 50 out of 50 U.S. states,” Lewer said, continuing the analogy. “That’s a radical position — being able to take the life of your own child is pretty radical.”
Samuel Long said he arrived at the protest by happenstance after grabbing coffee downtown and being told the initiative event was underway. Long said his opposition was grounded in his religious belief and, by extension, his belief that life begins at conception.
“If they are human from conception, they deserve human rights,” Long said. “The Bible has already taught this over 1,000 years ago, and we believe that that has stood the test of time.”
It remains to be seen where Idaho voters stand on the matter, but the initiative is in the closing stages of the approval process.
In order to qualify as a ballot initiative, campaigns are required to collect valid signatures from 6 percent of all Idaho voters, equivalent to 70,725 signatures. These signatures must also reflect six percent of all registered voters in 18 of 35 legislative districts in Idaho.
Because signature’s for the abortion initiative have already been validated by counties, Thursday marked the final step in the tallying process, where signatures are submitted to the Idaho Secretary of State’s office for certification.
The act needs approval from a simple majority of voters in order to pass.