Just one Christian Nationalist group is behind Idaho's bans on trans care and abortion

Two court cases are underway in Idaho that will profoundly affect access to health care in the state.

Idaho v. United States and Poe v. Labrador, which contest the constitutionality of Idaho's recently-passed bans on abortion and gender-affirming care for youth, have several overwhelming similarities, as noted in a recent column by research institute the Center for American Progress.

Most notably, the principal litigator defending the state of Idaho in both cases is the Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), a conservative Christian legal advocacy group that has played a pivotal role in several cases involving abortion access and LGBTQ+ rights, including the Supreme Court case Dobbs v. Jackson’s Women’s Health Organization, which overturned the right to an abortion nationally.

The Southern Poverty Law Center has designated the ADF as a hate group that believes the “homosexual agenda” will destroy Christianity and society. It was most prominent under the Trump administration, though it was originally founded in 1994 to advocate for the end of separation of church and state.

In both Idaho cases, the column noted that the ADF ignored, and influenced conservative judges to discount, the robust scientific evidence demonstrating abortion and gender-affirming care save lives over "cherry-picked" evidence that suits their personal ideologies.

In the abortion case, Idaho v. United States, justices dismissed three amicus briefs from doctors that testified how bans will endanger the lives of pregnant people. In the gender-affirming care case, Poe v. Labrador, justices relied on a widely-debunked survey that sourced its information from anti-transgender chat forums.

“Conservative judges and ADF are cherry-picking evidence in support of their personal ideology and throwing scientific evidence to the wayside, thereby threatening access to crucial abortion and gender-affirming care, which will have a ripple effect across the country,” Sabrina Talukder, director of the Women’s Initiative at CAP, said in a statement. “To mitigate the politicization of medicine and protect patients and medical providers, we must in turn stop the politicization of the judiciary.”