October , 2026
A Prognosis Is Not a Verdict
By: Julianne Young
I have lived the pain of hearing that my child has no future and wrestled with how long to hang on. In 2006, doctors told me that my infant son would probably never walk or talk. A preemie of 29 weeks, he suffered an intracranial hemorrhage. Their recommendation: discontinue care. Had we done so, my son would have died a natural death. We did not. He did not. Instead, he went on to do everything they said he couldn’t, and much more. At birth, he was developmentally comparable to the preborn babies at the center of Idaho’s fetal anomaly debate. For those with similarly grim prognoses, the alternative being promoted is not a natural death. It is abortion.
Supporters of Proposition 1 have made “fatal fetal anomalies” a primary selling point. They argue that “forcing” a mother to carry a baby who cannot survive is cruel, and they blame the Legislature for not legalizing abortion in these cases. In reality, lawmakers have not acted because there is not a consensus on the answer to the fundamental question raised by these painful cases: Should Idaho embrace the premise that some disabilities justify ending a life?
Idaho law has never embraced that premise. Abortion as the primary recommendation for a dire fetal diagnosis came into vogue alongside prenatal technology under Roe v. Wade. Once a diagnosis became a reason for abortion, it did not stay narrow. A systematic review of U.S. studies found that about two-thirds of preborn babies diagnosed with Down syndrome were aborted; hospital-based studies put the figure near 85 percent; in Denmark it is 98 percent.
Diagnoses can be wrong. A 2022 New York Times investigation found that positive results on several popular prenatal screens for rare disorders were wrong about 85 percent of the time. Even conditions labeled “lethal” aren’t always. Medical literature records children with trisomy 18 living into adulthood. A 2016 report described a girl with anencephaly who lived 28 months without life support; Colorado’s Nickolas Coke lived three years. In England, Noah Wall’s parents were offered termination five times after scans showed devastating brain damage from spina bifida and hydrocephalus. Noah was born with about 2 percent of a normal brain. By age three, his brain had grown to roughly 80 percent. He talks, counts, and goes to school.
Most babies with anencephaly do not beat the odds. But the baby is not suffering in the womb, and about 72 percent are born alive, giving grieving families an invaluable opportunity to say goodbye. The anomaly itself rarely threatens the mother’s life. When life-threatening complications do arise, Idaho’s Defense of Life Act already lets a physician act on good-faith medical judgment and intervene. What remains is the claim that continuing the pregnancy is too painful, not for the baby, but for others.
This pro-abortion argument resembles the logic of euthanasia, with two crucial differences. The person whose life ends has no choice, and the death is not a gentle one. Second-trimester abortion is often carried out by dismemberment. Even abortion-rights researchers now acknowledge a preborn child may feel pain from 12 weeks.
Nor is abortion the merciful option for mothers that advocates suggest. Peer-reviewed research from the Netherlands found that nearly half of women who ended pregnancies for fetal anomalies had post-traumatic stress symptoms four months later. About one in six still showed pathological levels two to seven years afterward. A Duke University study found that women who continued pregnancies after a lethal diagnosis reported less despair and depression than those who terminated. A mother’s bond to her child does not dissolve with a dismal diagnosis; asking her to consent to ending that child’s life does not ease her anguish.
A better path exists. Perinatal hospice helps families hold, name, and say goodbye to their children with dignity. When some doctors say they “could do nothing,” they are treating abortion as if it were the only option. Comfort care, palliative support, dignity for the child, and time together are not nothing.
Idaho’s Defense of Life Act rests on a clear principle: Medical practice exists to preserve and improve life, never to deliberately cause death. Abandoning that principle raises hard questions: Which diagnoses would qualify? Who would decide? Would insurers and systems guarding “scarce” resources come to prefer the cheaper option?
Prop 1 dodges those questions, instead throwing the door wide open to elective abortion. In Florida, which tracks reasons for abortion, fetal anomalies of every kind made up less than 1 percent of abortions in 2023, while about 97 percent were for elective, social, economic, or emotional reasons. Prop 1 is no narrow fix for heartbreaking cases. It is a sweeping abortion right, and since ending the lives of healthy babies is a tough sell, its backers are playing political football with tragedy instead.
Voters beware. Vote no on Prop 1.
Julianne Young is a Bingham County Mom who loves faith, family, and freedom; a former state representative; founder of the nonprofit Idaho Family Strong; regional coordinator for Idaho Chooses Life; and 2nd Vice Chair of the Idaho State GOP.
