In previous blog posts, I’ve noted the sweeping consequences for women’s reproductive health of the draconian bans on abortion that went into effect after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. Obviously, women in the “red” states must flee to the blue states to get abortions or furtively attempt to obtain abortion pills that are illegal in their state from out-of-state internet sources. But also, as many commentators have stressed, the reverberations of the anti-woman policies in large portions of the U.S. have spread far beyond their intended targets. Any woman who is pregnant or intending to become pregnant, or indeed, any woman seeking timely and competent gynecological care, can be put in danger as a consequence of the fanaticism of the anti-abortion zealots.
Take, for example, the case of Idaho, which on the abortion issue is the only extreme-red state (actually, dark orange in the map above) in the western part of the U.S. Idaho now has the country’s most brutal anti-abortion rules. Even before Roe v. Wade was overturned the state was experiencing shortages of medical personnel; in 2022, nine thousand health care positions went unfilled. The situation is more dire now, particularly in obstetrics and gynecology. Planned Parenthood and other similar clinics have closed all over the state. These closures affect access not only to abortion and contraception, but also to affordable mammograms and cervical cancer screening, fertility and adoption counseling, and the myriad other services that such clinics provide.
Two Idaho hospitals, citing great difficulties in recruiting skilled doctors and nurses, closed their entire labor/delivery units this past spring. According to a March 2023 press release from Bonner General, which is a major network of hospitals and clinics in Idaho, “highly respected, talented physicians are leaving… the Idaho legislature continues to introduce and pass bills that criminalize physicians for medical care nationally recognized as the standard of care.”
A recent survey of Idaho doctors working in maternal and fetal health found that of the 75 contemplating leaving the state, 73 cite Idaho’s abortion laws as a contributing factor in their decision. By the end of 2023 more than a dozen labor and delivery doctors—including five of Idaho’s nine most recognized maternal-fetal experts—will have either retired or left to practice elsewhere. Given the horrendous reputation of the Idaho state legislature for imposing restrictions on obstetric and gynecological practice, the chances of being able to replace those lost specialists are slim to none. Idaho obstetrician Amelia Huntsberger, an expert on maternal mortality, has moved to Oregon. She explained her decision by complaining that “Idaho calls itself a ‘pro-life state,’ but the Idaho Legislature doesn’t care about the death of moms.” And in May the chief doctor at one of Boise’s best hospitals told CNN that “we’re at the beginning of the collapse on an entire system of care.”
Ironically, the laws the state legislators are so proud of seem not to be reducing the numbers of abortions of Idaho’s women at all. Conservative politicians crow that there have been 1,230 fewer abortions in the state than in the year before Roe v. Wade was overturned. But the neighboring states of Washington, Oregon and Nevada respectively have reported 1,490, 1,320, and 2,580 more abortions than in the year before. Of course, not all of the excess procedures in those states are done on Idaho women. Washington clinics, for example, are serving increasing numbers of women from Alaska, Texas, and other red states as well as Idaho (in part because Governor Jay Inslee has declared Washington a “sanctuary state” whose police are barred from cooperating with out-of-state police who attempt to investigate abortion “crimes”). But in the months since Idaho passed the nation’s most extreme anti-abortion laws, the number of Idaho patients in the ten abortion clinics of eastern and central Washington—i.e., within about 150 miles of the Idaho border—has jumped by 56%. Bottom line: despite their sanctimonious blustering, the Idaho legislators have done nothing but put the health and welfare of their citizens in great danger.
Sources: Danny Westneat, “In the Washington v. Idaho abortion wars, data shows Idaho is losing,” The Seattle Times, June 28, 2023; Lauren Gallup and Rachel Sun, “Number of Idaho abortion patients traveling to Washington up 56% after Roe overturned,” Oregon Public Broadcasting, July 10, 2023; Sheryl Gay Stolberg, “As Abortion Laws Drive Obstetricians from Red States, Maternity Care Suffers,” The New York Times, September 6, 2023.
ahkoblitz 