“Prosecutors seeking to test out laws like this are likely to go after people who won’t garner much sympathy from the public,” wrote one author and abortion rights activist.

By Brett Wilkins. Published 10-31-2023 by Common Dreams

An Idaho teenager and his mother who allegedly took a 15-year-old girl to neighboring Oregon for an abortion without parental knowledge or consent are facing felony kidnapping and other charges in a prosecution viewed as a test case for the state’s “abortion trafficking” statute.

In April, Idaho became the first state in the nation to pass a so-called “abortion trafficking” law, criminalizing the transportation of pregnant minors within the state for the purpose of obtaining an abortion or abortion medication. While 18-year-old Kadyn Swainston and his 42-year-old mother Rachael Swainston of Pocatello were not charged under the law—perhaps because it is being challenged in court—author and activist Jessica Valenti noted that “prosecutors used the exact language of the trafficking law in the kidnapping charge.”

Continue reading →