By Dee Sarton

For 40 years as a broadcast journalist, I reported on Idaho’s most controversial issues without telling viewers what to think. Today, free from the professional constraints of journalism, I’m asking you to hear why I believe Proposition 1 is too extreme for Idaho and deserves far more scrutiny than its title or campaign slogans can possibly provide.

I want us to look under the hood together.

To explain why, I need to take you back to 1990. That year, the Idaho Legislature passed what was then one of the nation’s most significant abortion bills. Many believed it could eventually challenge Roe v. Wade. Then-Gov. Cecil Andrus, a Democrat who also considered himself pro-life, vetoed it. I cared deeply about abortion, and I was devastated. Yet every evening I reminded myself that my job was not to advocate. It was to report fairly.

Looking back, I’m grateful for the discipline journalism demanded of me. Before I could fairly explain someone else’s position, I first had to understand it. That meant resisting slogans, questioning my own assumptions and listening carefully to people whose convictions were very different from my own.

It wasn’t always comfortable. I got letters and phone calls from both sides of the abortion debate, each convinced I was terribly biased. Oddly enough, I saw that as evidence I had probably done my job.

Those experiences taught me an important lesson: We all have blind spots that make it really hard to discern truth. That’s why I’ve always believed that before forming an opinion on any important issue, we should look beyond the headlines, challenge our own assumptions and examine the facts as honestly as we can.

That’s exactly what I’m asking Idaho voters to do with Proposition 1. I’m no longer writing as a television journalist. I’m writing as a grandmother, a Christian, and an Idaho citizen who believes this proposal deserves much closer examination. I’m convinced it is not what most Idahoans would support because its language is broad and its ramifications severe.

I don’t question the sincerity of many people supporting this initiative. I know many genuinely want to protect women facing heartbreaking circumstances. This issue is deeply personal for them too.

But good intentions are not enough when we’re asked to rewrite the law. Words matter. Definitions matter. Legal language matters.

My own life has changed dramatically since I first reported on abortion legislation more than three decades ago. Today, our family is blessed with three grandchildren because three courageous birth mothers chose life. Abortion is no longer an issue I understand only in theory. Every birthday party, every Christmas morning, every hug from those grandchildren reminds me that lives, families and generations are shaped by the decisions we make together as citizens on the value of life.

That daily reminder has strengthened convictions I already held, but it has also deepened my compassion. Women facing unexpected pregnancies deserve understanding, practical support, and hope. Fortunately in Idaho we have great organizations dedicated to those goals.

At the same time, I believe compassion demands that we consider the developing human life within the womb. Since 1990, science has given us an extraordinary window into the earliest stages of human development, revealing far more than we knew when I first covered this issue. Those discoveries confirm my belief that every human life possesses inherent and inestimable value.

Over the coming weeks, wherever I’m invited into the conversation, I’ll explain why I believe Proposition 1 goes much farther than most Idahoans would accept. I’ll base that argument on the initiative’s actual language, that when you look under the hood, what you see is disturbing.

I hope to persuade you to vote no on Prop 1 — but only after we’ve looked carefully at what it actually says — so we’ll all know exactly what we’re being asked to vote for.