Mother, son charged by authorities for transporting underage girlfriend over state lines to obtain an abortion

POCATELLO, Idaho- An Idaho woman and her son are in hot water with the law after court officials say they took the son’s girlfriend– a minor– out of state to get an abortion. They stand charged with kidnapping in the case, prosecutors say. For unknown reasons, authorities have not identified either party.

Court documents reveal police in Idaho began an investigation of the mother and son this summer after the 15-year-old’s mother told police her daughter had been sexually assaulted and later taken over state lines to Oregon to have an abortion, Fox News reported.

Idaho has some of the strictest abortion restrictions in the country, and the procedure is only permitted in limited exceptional cases.

Conversely, Oregon permits abortion throughout pregnancy with limited restrictions, which leads many women to cross state lines to get abortions, which pro-lifers have been trying to outlaw since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade last year. 

The Idaho state legislature, under control of Republicans, and Gov. Brad Little, also a Republican, are looking for additional ways to stifle abortion.

For example, the state recently made it illegal to assist minors in obtaining an abortion without parental consent, a law designed, proponents say, to prevent the exact thing that happened above from occurring.

That law is currently undergoing a legal challenge, and prosecutors are not using that law to pursue the mother and son. 

In an affidavit, the girl’s mother was led to believe her daughter was living with the father. However, she discovered she was staying at her boyfriend’s house in Pocatello, Idaho. 

The young girl told authorities she began a consensual sexual relationship with her boyfriend when he was 17 and she was 15. The relationship continued after he turned 18, which was about the time the girl became pregnant. 

Court documents showed the girl was initially happy when she discovered she was pregnant; however, her boyfriend felt differently, warning her he would not pay child support and would terminate the relationship. The boyfriend’s mother later admonished the girl not to tell her parents and threatened to “kick her out of their house” if she did. 

In May, the girl traveled to Bend, Oregon– about 550 miles from Pocatello– with her boyfriend and his mother to secure an abortion, she told police. Police later used geofencing data from her cellphone to confirm that the three had traveled to Oregon around the same time. 

The mother told police she rented a car to go with her son and his girlfriend to Oregon and claimed the decision to get an abortion was “mutually agreed upon” between her son and his girlfriend, claiming she never “coerced” anyone into getting an abortion. 

The mother and son are facing identical charges of second-degree kidnapping. At the same time, the son is also charged with rape and three counts of producing child sexually exploitative material after police found he had captured sexually explicit videos and photos of the girl. 

The mother is also facing multiple drug charges, police say. 

According to prosecutors, the kidnapping charge stems from the fact that the mother and her son intended to “keep or conceal the female” from her parents by transporting “the child out of state for the purpose of obtaining an abortion.” 

The two suspects have been assigned a public defender, who declined comment, saying he had just been given the case the day before.