If abortion had been illegal in Idaho during this woman's ordeal, what would her options have been? Of course she could have carried the baby to term and given birth, and then she could have kept the baby and watched for the rest of it's life as it suffered from any number of physical and cognitive ailments, or she could have given it up for adoption so that the child would suffer and wonder who his mother was and possibly resent her for the difficulties he/ she faced daily
Other than these options, the woman could have also sought an abortion from other sources, where infection and unsuccessful procedures could have been complications and possibly killed her. The woman's child is a healthy young boy, who probably would have never been born if abortion was illegal and the mother had been forced to give birth the first time she got pregnant. .
There are serious medical reasons for performing an abortion. Say, for instance that a pregnant woman is in for an ultrasound and the doctor finds a cyst on her cervix. After a biopsy, the cyst turns out to be malignant. After a week of tests, the cancer was found to be fairly advanced and to have spread to the fetus. Therapies used to treat cancer would be hazardous to the unborn baby, and postponing treatment would most likely give the mother only a couple of months to live making the birth of the child questionable anyway. For the health of the mother in this type of situation, an abortion is a very feasible option. When first trimester abortion was made legal in the U.S., states were given the power to regulate "partial birth," or second trimester abortions. This ruling though, was made with the exception of cases where abortion is needed for the health and/ or life of the mother. The supreme court recognizes the validity of abortion for medical reasons in both Roe v. Wade, 1973 and Eisenstadt v. Baird, 1972. There are endless scenarios in which the mother's life could be endangered by continuing to carry a baby, and the baby's life endangered regardless of the decision made.