Pregnant with no OB-GYNs around: Maternity care became a casualty of Idaho's abortion ban

[In It to Win It]

Pregnant with no OB-GYNs around: Maternity care became a casualty of Idaho's abortion ban

If you’re pregnant in Bonner County, Idaho, you’ll likely spend a lot of time on Route 95.

Bonner General Health, a 25-bed hospital, discontinued obstetrics, labor and delivery services this year. So for residents, Route 95 is the way to the closest in-state hospital with obstetrics care, which is at least an hour’s drive south — or longer in the snowy winter.

The hospital, which staffed the county’s only OB-GYNs, cited the state’s “legal and political climate” as one of the reasons it shuttered the department. Abortion has been banned in Idaho, with few exceptions, since August 2022.

Laura Olin, 32, lives in the city of Sandpoint, where Bonner General is, and gave birth to her twin boys at the hospital in 2020. When she became pregnant again, she opted to deliver her daughter in Spokane, Washington — 90 minutes away — in August.

As the reality of doing the drive while in labor set in, she said, “it was very scary those last few weeks of pregnancy.”

It made her think differently about her previous birth experience, Olin added. “To go into labor at home and arrive at the hospital five minutes later was a blessing that I didn’t know was a blessing,” she said.

The four OB-GYNs who previously worked at Bonner General, meanwhile, have left Idaho to practice in states where abortion is legal. All four told NBC News that the state’s ban contributed to their decisions to move.

As a whole, the situation has left mothers-to-be in Bonner County to contend with an unexpected consequence of their state’s abortion policy: reduced access to medical care for women whose pregnancies are very much wanted.

[Happy Hoosier]

1. I feel sorry for the women...

Who didn’t vote for this shit.

[Demobrat]

7. Me too.

The ones who did, well, lie down with dogs etc. But the ones who didn’t are paying a heavy price.

[Diamond_Dog]

2. ....

“I definitely have patients that I know would’ve been in support of these laws and now are very surprised at the downstream effects,” she said.

Just what in the hell did they expect? Did they think about the ill and dangerous effects of this law at all? Mind blowing.

[Demobrat]

5. They thought only the sluts would be affected.

Not the nice girls.

[pandr32]

14. LMAO!

[kiri]

8. sex is for pleasure and has nothing to do with a gawd

I am eternally dismayed that the anti-abortion cult has this mind-set: "It's your fault for having sex." They simply cannot abide that a woman might enjoy sex and enjoy pleasure with a partner. Getting pregnant makes you a 'slut'.

I used to walk or bicyle past a PP clinic every day on my way to work, in New Hampshire. Occasionally I would pause to listen to the antis. There was no real concern about the fetus. Their whole shtick was "You played, now you pay." Totally ugly and hateful towards females.
.

[Diamond_Dog]

9. Yes. They are sickos.

In their fevered brains, becoming pregnant is punishment for the sin the woman committed and it must be carried out at all costs. It’s all about punishment and humiliation, not about the baby at all.

[ShazzieB]

22. Most people who are opposed to abortion don't bother to inform themselves of the facts.

Their thinking runs as follows: Abortion BAD --> must get rid of bad things --> must ban abortion.

These people firmly believe that abortion = "killing babies," and they don't think beyond that. Furthermore, they believe that the only women who get abortions are "sluts" who get pregnant through "illicit" (i.e., out of wedlock) sex, so an abortion ban will only affect those sluts, who obviously deserve whatever happens to them. /s

Based on these simplistic and poorly informed assumptions, they enthusiastically support and vote for politicians who think the same way. The possible "downstream effects" never occur to them, because they have no idea there could be any, much less what those effects might be.They can't see anything beyond "saving the babies." Such things as tubal pregnancies, incomplete miscarriages, and prenatal diagnosis of catastrophic, incompatible with life, birth defects are all beyond their knowledge or imaginings, as are the ramifications of being a practicing OB/GYN in a state where abortion is banned or even criminalized and any exceptions are so poorly defined that they might as well not exist.

TL/dr: They don't know about the ill and dangerous effects of these laws, and they're dumb to know that they don't know.

[Iris]

31. They just wanted to "save the babies"

[ALBliberal]

3. I had an unexpectedly quick labor with my second child.

Half hour drive felt way too far. And an hour might have had me giving birth in the car. And can you imagine the panic driving on icy roads. This whole thing is a horrible affront to women, babies, and good doctors that want to provide standard of care.

[LetMyPeopleVote]

4. Women in Idaho are left without maternal care because the state's abortion ban

Link to tweet

[peppertree]

16. The Farce News effect

Ailes knew what he was doing: go for the insecurities, and the hatred.

[erronis]

6. I've been predicting this. And other medical professions will abandon these states.

The birth-to-death cycle includes many practitioners and specialists.

Losing gynecologists, obstetricians - you're going to lose pediatricians and others that specialize in early child care.

Family doctors or "primary care practitioners" (PCP) won't be able to pick up the burden. And in the 15 minute corporate-dictated world, they can't do a good job.

Basically we're going to end up with huge swaths of the US without any care whatsoever.

I think this is the (r)epuglicon wet dream.

Why?

[onecaliberal]

10. How many of them supported these laws or politicians who passed the laws.

Maybe people will start to pay attention to individuals who mean to do harm instead of serve the public.

[Marthe48]

11. Womenfolk better get the hell out of idaho

tx, al, ar, ky, la, mo, ok, sd, tn, all states that have total bans on abortions, with no exceptions for rape and incest, or health. And some of the states listed also allow for imprisonment of anyone who performs an abortion. Why do they hate women? Their mothers, aunts, sisters, cousins?

[Demobrat]

23. Women owe them a living and they owe them sex.

They’re not doing their jobs.

[Marthe48]

24. They can kiss my horse

n/t

[Solly Mack]

12. Guess they forgot they were women. Thinking of themselves as somehow "special". Different.

“I definitely have patients that I know would’ve been in support of these laws and now are very surprised at the downstream effects,” she said.

Anti-woman means anti-all women.

Believing that because you're carrying a pregnancy to term means the hate against women can't touch you is just plain stupid.

Pregnancy is a medical condition - with everything that comes with having a medical condition. Good outcomes, bad outcomes, and all the dangers in between.

[Sky Jewels]

13. Dear Republican-Voting Women of Idaho:

Welcome to your Christian Taliban paradise! You are truly reaping the glorious consequences of godly life in Gilead. Good luck out there!

P.S.: You'd better remember to pray to that merciful All-Powerful Male Sky Wizard of yours, God, that you survive all your pregnancies and don't leave any existing children motherless. I'm sure God will listen! He's a real peach and never causes or allows any horrors or cruelty whatsoever ... well, except for famines, wars, natural disasters, diseases, fatal accidents, genocides, slaveries, etc., etc.

[peppertree]

15. Dear Idaho newlyweds: Give up on the idea of a baby - or move out of state.

For your own sakes - and your baby's.

[KentuckyWoman]

17. The corner of KY I come from has similar issues

Pikeville Medical Center does still have OB services but good luck getting an appointment. Doctors are fleeing the state and finding one willing to go all the way out there is getting far more difficult.

As a result young couples and families are also leaving the area in search of greener pastures.

[LoisB]

18. How any woman can vote for a Republican boggles the mind. How any Republican with a wife,

mother, sister, or daughter can vote for such vile anti-woman policies also boggles the mind.

[Demobrat]

25. Not really.

They don’t want their wimmen gettin’ uppity. Anything that keeps the females in their place is a good thing.

[Tansy_Gold]

19. "...for women whose pregnancies are very much wanted."

I hate this statement.

It relegates abortion and abortion care to "unwanted" pregnancies or "unwanted" babies. There are women who very much want their babies who still need abortion services and care.

[ancianita]

20. Women at Bonner have become a casualty of Idaho woman controllers and haters.

[Raftergirl]

21. I'm done feeling sorry for them and the situation they find themselves in.

This was predictable. Voting for certain people have consequences.

If they want things to change it is up to them to change them.

[roamer65]

26. FAFO.

Keep voting for GQP, Idaho.

You will get even more FAFO.

[roamer65]

27. If I were a married man, had a couple of kids and lived in Idaho.

I would get a vasectomy stat.

Snip, snip and no more worry.

[Demobrat]

30. You would.

Not sure the Neanderthals who vote Republican would let a doctor take away their manhood.

[roamer65]

32. Very true.

Also I probably would have packed up and moved to Washington State by now.

[Demovictory9]

28. And those fleeing OB-GYNs take their knowledge regarding other medical issues with them

[Demovictory9]

29. She will drive to a blue state for birth care..irony

[Maru Kitteh]

33. So women should leave Idaho. I sure as F would have. Husband could come along or not, I

would never have accepted staying as a younger mother of two girls in a state where our bodies were property, breed stock to the state. Hell fucking no. All other matters would be secondary to their lives, physical and emotional.