IDAHO — A federal judge has scaled back a ruling that blocked Idaho from prosecuting doctors who perform abortions to protect a pregnant woman's health, limiting the court's protection to just one physician — and the state is already asking a higher court to go further and throw out the ruling entirely.
U.S. District Judge B. Lynn Winmill issued the narrowing order on Aug. 25, restricting his earlier injunction so it applies only to plaintiff Dr. Stacy Seyb, a Boise maternal-fetal medicine specialist. All other Idaho physicians who perform abortions in the same circumstances no longer have court protection from prosecution or loss of their medical license.
The original injunction, issued Aug.13, had barred both the Ada County Prosecuting Attorney and the Idaho Attorney General from enforcing Idaho's abortion statutes against any physician in two situations: when a doctor determines continuing a pregnancy poses a non-negligible risk of serious and lasting harm to the patient's health, or when abortion is necessary to prevent the patient's death from self-harm.
READ MORE | Federal judge blocks Idaho from prosecuting doctors for health-protecting abortions
Winmill cited a 2025 U.S. Supreme Court ruling, Trump v. CASA, Inc., which held that federal courts cannot issue injunctions protecting people beyond the named plaintiffs in a case. The judge acknowledged the same legal reasoning would likely apply to any physician in the same situation as Seyb, but said the Supreme Court precedent prevented him from extending the protection further.
The day after the narrowing order, Idaho Attorney General Raúl Labrador filed an emergency motion with the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals asking the appeals court to stay the injunctions entirely, arguing the district court ruling defies the Supreme Court's 2022 Dobbs decision, which returned abortion regulation to the states. They requested a ruling by September 4.
Idaho voters are set to decide this fall on a ballot initiative that would allow abortion until fetal viability, generally around 21 weeks.
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