Opinion ID: 787069
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Adequacy of the Health Exception

Text: 58 The Idaho statute allows physicians to perform abortions on minors who have not secured their parent's or a court's permission only when [a] medical emergency exists for the minor so urgent that there is insufficient time for the physician to obtain the informed consent of a parent or a court order and the attending physician certifies such in the pregnant minor's medical records. Idaho Code § 18-609A(1)(a)(v). The physician must record the factual basis for his determination. Id. 59 Medical emergency is in turn defined as 60 a sudden and unexpected physical condition which, in the reasonable medical judgment of any ordinarily prudent physician acting under the circumstances and conditions then existing, is abnormal and so complicates the medical condition of the pregnant minor as to necessitate the immediate causing or performing of an abortion: 1. To prevent her death; or 61 2. Because a delay in causing or performing an abortion will create serious risk of immediate, substantial and irreversible impairment of a major physical bodily function of the patient. 62 Idaho Code § 18-609A(5)(c)(i). A medical emergency cannot be: 63 1. Any physical condition that would be expected to occur in normal pregnancies of women of similar age, physical condition and gestation; or 64