As Republican lawmakers push ahead with their slate of restrictive, anti-transgender, anti-reproductive health measures in state after GOP-held state across the country, a new tactic is emerging among some of the conservative movement’s most extreme corners — one that would not only criminalize essential health care locally, but would actually extend their punitive reach into other states as well.
Over the past few weeks, several Republican-led states have introduced bills that include special provisions to actively punish residents who travel elsewhere to receive medical care, such as gender-affirmation treatment or pregnancy termination. In Idaho, for instance, H.B. 675 not only declares that anyone convicted to have provided certain forms of gender-affirmation treatments for minors is “guilty of a felony and shall be imprisoned in the state prison for a term of not more than life” — it also makes special point to include anyone who “knowingly removes or causes, permits, or facilitates the removal of a child from this state” for the same treatment. The measure, introduced in the Idaho House by Republican attorney and “avid historian” state Rep. Bruce Skaug, was passed onto the state Senate by an overwhelming margin of 55-13, almost entirely along party lines. (A lone Republican — state Rep. Fred Wood — joined the minority Democrats in voting against the bill. Notably, Wood is the Idaho House’s sole physician.)
