Idaho is becoming an OBGYN desert, threatening the lives of mothers and infants
A man is suing three women for wrongful death, alleging they helped his now ex-wife end her pregnancy
At the end of this month, an Idaho labor and delivery unit will shutter its doors. It's not exactly an anomaly; it's the third such closure in the state following the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health, which triggered laws in the state that criminalize physicians who provide abortion care and make access to the procedure impossible.
As of April 1, 2024, West Valley Medical Center in Caldwell, Idaho, will no longer deliver infants. According to a statement on the hospital’s website, the closure was an outcome the institution “worked for years to avoid.” While West Valley Medical Center didn’t cite restrictive abortion laws as the reason for the closure, Dr. Kara Cadwallader, who is a family medicine physician in Idaho, told Salon in a phone interview that providers feel as if their “hands are tied” and they can’t do their jobs in a state where abortion is completely banned (with only a narrow exception in which an abortion is "necessary to prevent the death of the pregnant woman") and where physicians face jail time for providing a standard part of care.
Elections have consequences. This is just the latest step in the FAFO process for Idaho.
First, it was the clinics in the North Idaho, and now the rot is moving southward. More and more women and children will be affected by this attitude of anti humanism that focuses on declaring women property of the state.
Women in Idaho should be looking to move somewhere that doesn't consider them owned by the legislature. Good luck to you if you're stuck in Idaho. The scenery is beautiful, but the rights are contracting.
It's not their sole responsibility to bare. Men should feel ashamed to live in the state and every father should be working OT to protect their daughters.
All true. But men leaving won't really help anything. It's women that are affected by this.
Every person who leaves a state is taking their labor and taxable income with them. This hits the GOP harder than most other forms of protest.