Some select paragraphs:
Across Idaho, doctors are leaving, looking for states where politics don’t dictate how they practice medicine. The consequences of Idaho’s anti-choice laws hit Sandpoint fast and hard, hollowing out medical care for women within months. For years, the town had a maternity ward that delivered as many as 350 babies every year – now it has nothing. The OB-GYN ward shut down this spring and doctors have been fleeing the state in a steady stream, seeking shelter in places where their work doesn’t put them at risk of criminal charges or big lawsuits.
It’s become a gamble, getting pregnant and giving birth in a place that no longer has a maternity unit or any obstetricians. Sandpoint is small, fewer than 10,000 people, but it’s been a medical hub for a rural region of 50,000 in north Idaho, Montana and Washington.
Idaho is one of several states that had trigger laws: immediate abortion restrictions that went into effect when Roe v Wade fell a year ago. In August of 2022, the state enacted a near-total ban on abortion with exceptions only if the mother’s life is in danger, or in the case of rape and incest. Those instances require a police report to be filed. The state also adopted what it called an “abortion trafficking” ban, which bars taking minors to other states for abortion care. Family members can sue doctors for thousands of dollars if they perform an abortion, and doctors may face criminal fines and even prison time.
Idaho also became the only state in the country to stop tracking maternal mortality rates. Activists say it’s like they don’t want anyone to know how deadly their decisions might be.
This is not a feel-good story, folks. But I’m stating the obvious.
The picture of the OB-GYN doctor standing in her garage with her packed belongings made me quite sad. And for pregnant mothers having only the support of a midwife in a region of small towns totaling 50k people - while adequate care is hours of driving away - is unfathomable.
Further in the article, there’s this interesting line:
This point appears to be inaccurate considering there are a number of States that proceeded to enshrine abortion rights in their own constitutions (or otherwise protect abortion access by law). Some have even expanded abortion care. The Center for Reproductive Rights makes this clear:
https://reproductiverights.org/maps/abortion-laws-by-state
I’m gathering that is why the aforementioned doctor is moving to Oregon. (See how Oregon is depicted in the above map…) I would imagine other OB-GYN doctors are doing the same.
It’s been fun watching the MAGAs crash and burn in recent years and Trump getting arrested every few weeks. But the damage that the Christofascists have done to women - and other marginalised communities - is grave indeed.
I think you got the big misunderstanding stated well. This will not happen everywhere. This will only happen in red states. This is what all these started voted for over and over. Doctors warned that they would leave for non hostile states and that the people most impacted would be rural and red communities. These stories are unfortunate but trend to leave out context, did these people get what they voted for? Most likely, in Idaho, they did. They just dint like the side effects they were warned of are now impacting them personally.
You know who’s fault it’ll be too, everyone else’s but their own, and the rage machine continues.
to your point they hate obama despite the fact obamacare save rural hospitals
They love the Affordable Care Act, but hate Obamacare.
Spoiler: they’re the same.
Here in Massachusetts, we still call it Romney-care because, spoiler: it’s still the same thing
Republicans don’t like having that pointed out either, but, as the bumper stickers said after Nixon carried 49 states for his second term, “Don’t blame me, I’m from Massachusetts.”
States aren’t homogenous, not even red states. I am sure many of the people affected voted against those politicians and laws but were in the minority. It’s a really cold and callous attitude to ignore their plight just because their neighbor thinks they should be punished.
The religious powers also want this to be a nationwide policy and they fund many Republicans in Congress. This can easily go from state bans to a nationwide ban now that we have a majority of Supreme Court justices opposed to abortion rights. All they need is another year with a big red wave.
In the last 3 elections a super majority vote for candidates that supported restrictive abortion policies.
https://www.cnn.com/election/2022/results/idaho https://www.cnn.com/election/2020/results/state/idaho https://www.politico.com/election-results/2018/idaho/
You may think it’s cold to say that they made choices that are having negative consequences that they have to deal with. I say it’s realistic that 40 years of states like Idaho pushing further right means they have to deal with it on their own terms. It is, after all, what they voted for.
Interestingly, from an outsider perspective, I could make the same argument about the whole of USA. YOU made this happen.
Yes and no. Yes Trump won the election in 2016 but he lost both popular votes in 2016 & 2020. The supreme court is not voted on and at least one seat should have been a liberal justice. Nationally the US is dictated by the minority opinion at the moment with how our government is structured. Saying Idaho is representative of the US as a whole is kind of like saying Bulgaria is representative of the EU as a whole. They’ve got their opinions and their places of influence but I don’t think anyone would say they are at the top of the pecking order.
How is saying every person in Idaho is representative for the whole of Idaho any better, though?
I mean, that is how a representative democracy works. I’m a two party system you get 50%+1 and you win. Getting more than 52-53% of the vote is very hard. Idaho is voting 60-70% + for this. Obviously individuals are individual but what is your argument? That there is nothing to be said about voting blocks because you have to consider each individual persons thoughts on a vacuum? Either you’re being obtuse or naive.
That it’s not only cold (and awful) but also wrong to say this is the consequence everyone in Idaho should have to suffer just because majority of people there voted like that.
There was some article I just read, where Texas quietly amended their abortion laws - just a little, but they now allow it in a couple more situations. The lawmakers are all covering their asses, saying “Well, its not our fault, the doctors are just too scared of nothing, they should be doing their jobs!”. And everyone else is like, “But that’s not what the law says!!” And the lawmakers seem miffed that anyone would blame them for what the law says.
Enshrining abortion rights in state law will be meaningless if Republicans gain control of Congress and write new laws restricting or abolishing abortion under federal law. Lindsey Graham already introduced a 15 week abortion ban. They could also go with a 6 week ban like Texas instituted shortly before Roe v Wade was overturned or they might even find a way to classify all abortion as murder under federal law.
State law doesn’t trump federal law. At best, states might choose not to enforce the federal law and leave it up to federal agencies to police and enforce.
It doesn’t but marijuana is also still illegal federally and several states have passed laws to legalize it.
Like any law, it has to be enforced to matter. Most hospitals aren’t in federal land (though military would be fucked).
The fact that they made people transporting minors out of state to get an abortion a crime is probably the most fucking insane part of this whole story.