Right to Life of Idaho: Initiative would nullify Idaho’s pro-life laws

Over 70,000 signatures needed to qualify for Nov. 2026 election

Thousands participated in the 2026 March for Life and rally at the Capitol building on Saturday, March 24. Speaker Blaine Conzatti and keynote speaker Matt Britton urged the public to education themselves on the Reproductive Freedom and Privacy Act (RFPA), which seeks to legalize abortion and sex change surgeries for minors. (ICR photo/Philip A. Janquart)

By Philip A. Janquart

ICR Editor

An abortion rights group is proposing a ballot measure that would privatize abortion decisions, overriding Idaho’s pro-life laws and effectively dismantling decades of legislative work, according to the pro-life organization Right to Life of Idaho (RTLI).

Boise-based Idahoans United for Women & Families (IUWF) is proposing the Reproductive Freedom and Privacy Act (RFPA), which the group wants added to the Nov. 3, 2026, election ballot.

Supporters have until April 30 to submit the 71,000 signatures, or 6% of registered voters in 18 of Idaho’s 35 legislative districts, required for the initiative to be added to the ballot.

“A storm is coming,” said Right to Life of Idaho President Emily Naugle at the Jan. 24 March for Life rally at the steps of the Capitol building in downtown Boise. This year’s theme was “Support Her, Protect Them.”

“Just like the Gospel of Luke, we know that we don’t need to panic, but we do need to be sure that Jesus is awake in the boat,” she said, noting that prayer and educating others are the keys to preparing for that storm.

Blaine Conzatti was one of the speakers at the Jan. 24 March for Life, winning the “2026 Pro-life Warrior Award.” He emphasized that the initiative is “too extreme for Idaho,” and encouraged supporters to visit tooextremeforidaho.com. The online home for the Decline to Sign campaign seeks to educate the public about the RFPA, specifically what it would mean for pro-life laws in Idaho and how it would affect women, minors and the preborn.

“According to a poll released just a few days ago by Boise State University, if the election were held today, about 60% — that’s six-zero — of Idaho voters would support this ballot initiative,” he said, addressing a crowd of about 2,500 pro-life supporters, an increase in attendance of about 500 over the 2024 event.

Conzatti is the president of the Idaho Family Policy Center and drafted and championed the Heartbeat Bill, the No Public Funds for Abortion Act and the Children’s School and Library Act, among other notable contributions to the pro-life cause.

“Ballot initiative supporters have already raised $1 million, and we expect them to raise millions more … so, more likely than not, they are going to get this on the ballot, and we’ve got our work cut out for us,” he said.

If the RFPA is added to the Nov. 3 ballot, Idahoans will vote on a proposed measure that asserts women have the “right to make decisions about their own bodies,” paving the way for them “to make private reproductive health care decisions, including abortion up to fetal viability and in medical emergencies,” IUWF stated in a certificate of review submitted to Idaho Secretary of State Phil McGrane on Nov. 21, 2024.

Brian Conzatti speaks at the Jan. 24, 2026 March for Life. (ICR photo/Emily Woodham) 

“Up to fetal viability” typically means the point at which a baby can survive outside its mother’s womb, or 23-24 weeks’ gestation. But the act redefines “fetal viability” as the “significant likelihood” of survival without “extraordinary measures,” according to RTLI. This could extend legal abortion in the third trimester.

“The Reproductive Freedom and Privacy Act recognizes that reproductive health care choices — such as the use of contraception, fertility treatments, childbirth care, miscarriage care, the decision to continue one’s own pregnancy and abortion — are deeply private matters that should be decided by a person in consultation with their health care provider,” according to IUWF’s statement of purpose, which adds that women and their health care providers should not be subjected to external pressures, punitive consequences or government interference.

Conzatti said the RFPA is about more than “reproductive rights.”

“If you thought this was just about abortion, it’s not: this ballot initiative would even establish a statutory right for minor children to undergo sex-change surgeries behind the backs of parents,” he said, pointing to what he described as a real-world struggle between good and evil, which is sure to culminate in eternal consequences.

“Right now, these children do not have voices to advocate for themselves,” Conzatti said. “One day, each of us will give an account to God for how we stewarded the opportunities he entrusted to us. We must earnestly desire to defend the preborn with all the strength that God has given us.

“It’s my prayer that God will use you in mighty ways to defeat this attack on preborn life, women and families in our state … we still have a long way to go, especially with the black-market chemical abortion pills that are flooding into our state. The biggest fight is still ahead of us.”

Fellow keynote speaker Matt Britton said Idaho, as a leading pro-life state with robust pro-life laws, faces an existential threat, stating that abortion is never health care, but rather an intent to end life, making it “homicide, not a constitutional right.”

Matt Britton speaks at the Jan. 24, 2026 March for Life. (ICR photo/Emily Woodham)  

“Abortion never saves a life,” he said. “The definition is taking the life of an unborn child. That is the definition of an abortion in every medical textbook on earth … it causes death.”

Britton has had an expansive legal career, including four terms as an elected prosecutor, county attorney and counsel to many nonprofits in the U.S. He is a major law firm litigator and general counsel. He has written and spoken on a range of legal and pro-life issues across the U.S., Europe, Asia and South America. He leads the Institute of Law and Justice, a special project of 40 Days for Life, in protecting American freedoms as pro-life supporters and the unborn across the country.

(Visit 40daysforlife.com for more information on a campaign whose slogan is “The beginning of the end of abortion.”)

He lauded Idaho’s partial-birth abortion ban, restrictions on abortion pills and various bills that have made the state consistently pro-life, a distinction, he said, that is rare among other U.S. states.

Britton noted that 100,000 babies are aborted in the U.S. every month.

“We talk about the drug epidemic and the people dying. Do you know how many people die of drugs in America every year … 100,000,” he said. “We’ve turned the entire country upside down, and every death is a tragedy. Every early death is a tragedy.”

Like Conzatti, Britton said there will be eternal consequences.

“You are facing an existential crisis (in Idaho) with this constitutional amendment,” he said. “It will go from being murder to being a woman’s right. Every embryology textbook on earth says life begins at conception, and we are all made in the image of God. We will be judged as a society on how we treat the most vulnerable among us.”

For more information about Right to Life of Idaho, visit rtli.org.