This reporting was supported by the International Women’s Media Foundation’s Reproductive Rights Reporting Fund.

It is part one in a three-part series on the reproductive health crisis and Christian nationalism in Idaho. Check back next Monday for part two.

When I walk into Liyah Babayan’s boutique Ooh La La! in Twin Falls, Idaho on Halloween, a customer is peppering her with questions about the history and formation of the Soviet Union. Babayan manages to answer them all while deftly weaving in an explanation of how the store’s consignment process works. “And where was Prussia?” I hear the woman ask as I wander through the shop, glancing through racks of gowns, jeans, and sweaters and looking at the family photos and mementos that decorate the walls.

Babayan’s ten-month-old scoots around in a baby walker, cooing and grinning at me when I pass, watched carefully by an older sibling.

Babayan and her family arrived in Twin Falls as refugees in 1992. Armenian Christians living in Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan, they survived violent ethnic cleansing there and fled to Armenia. But in their ancestral homeland, they were homeless. So they made their way to the United States and settled in Twin Falls, the hub community of Idaho’s Magic Valley. It’s a rich agricultural region that’s also home to the dramatic beauty of the Snake River Canyon and its many waterfalls. Babayan had just turned ten years old.

As a survivor of ethnic and religious persecution, perhaps it’s no wonder that Babayan is outspoken about her views. “Do not enter if you have any symptoms of: COVID-19, racism, homophobia, xenophobia,” a sign at her shop’s entrance reads. But last year, when Babayan ran unsuccessfully for state legislature, there was one thing she didn’t talk about: her pregnancy.

Babayan was pregnant from March through November 2022—campaign season. This also means she was pregnant when the Supreme Court’s draft opinion overturning Roe v. Wade leaked in May, pregnant when the decision was finalized in June, and pregnant in August, when Idaho became one of the first states to ban abortion outright.

In fact, there are multiple abortion bans in effect in Idaho. After Roe fell, the first to take effect was a six-week ban in the style of Texas’ SB 8, which empowered civilians to enforce it by filing “bounty hunter” lawsuits against doctors. But Idaho’s version did more than that: It included criminal penalties and doubled the civil penalties from $10,000 to a minimum of $20,000. The law is also written in such a way that a rapist wouldn’t be able to sue a doctor for providing an abortion to his victim, but one of his immediate family members could.

Then, days later, Idaho’s total abortion ban took effect. The law has such narrow exceptions that the federal government sued, arguing it violates the Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act (EMTALA).

Babayan found out she was expecting a week after announcing her candidacy. She and her partner decided to keep the pregnancy quiet because she’d had several miscarriages in the past. If they were going to face another pregnancy loss, they wanted to navigate it in private—especially given the political climate.

“When I started seeing how strange and how extreme some of our legislators were in their comments and testimony around certain laws being passed in Idaho, my partner and I realized that staying private was also a safety measure for me,” Babayan said. “Hearing some of these radical proposals on how to track pregnant women in Idaho to ensure they’re not miscarrying or leaving the state … I’ve never felt that unsafe as a woman in the United States before.”

In the 2023 legislative session, Idaho lawmakers created the new crime of “abortion trafficking,” making it illegal to help a minor travel within the state to access care. They also dissolved the state’s maternal mortality review committee, rendering Idaho the only state without one, and voted against expanding postpartum Medicaid coverage.

Babayan wasn’t alone in feeling afraid. Fallout from these policies—and their proponents’ extremist rhetoric—has created a culture of........

© Rewire.News