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.
It pains me that people are suffering, but on the other hand: good.
People will have to suffer to prove to them that they’re voting against their own interests. They need to know someone who is harmed to change their vote. They must feel the brutality of what a christo-fascist state delivers to prevent one from being instituted nationwide.
I hope this nonsense is repealed as soon as possible and the suffering ends but the suffering is necessary for change to occur.
You know that’s not going to happen though. Someone will come along and tell them all their problems are Biden’s fault and they’ll keep voting red until the day they die.
Given the way the GOP keeps politicizing medicine, that’ll probably be sooner rather than later.
Normally, I would agree with you. But this one is pretty difficult to point at dems or Biden.
Considering some people complain that Obama wasn’t at the Oval Office when 9-11 happened, I have faith they can pin this on Biden somehow.
How can this be good for the people, especially minors or disenfranchised women there?
It’s not good for the current generation at all. Apparently, the state needs to be reminded of why we let this decision rest between women and their doctors though. The current wave of ignorant conservatism needs to recede and unfortunately for this generation, there’s realistically no way to do that until the wave breaks.