Idaho Reproductive Health Policy Negatively Impacts Maternal Health

Idaho’s abortion ban has contributed to the loss of more than a third of the state’s OB-GYN workforce since 2022, reports ABC News. The article uses Bonner General Health, located in Sandpoint, Idaho, as an example. The health system announced in March 2023 that it would no longer provide obstetrical care, citing the state’s “legal and political climate” as one of the factors that drove the decision. The hospital in the city of around 10,000 people was one of three health systems in Idaho to shutter their labor and delivery services in recent years. A vast majority of the remaining physicians providing obstetric care are concentrated in Idaho’s seven most populated counties, leaving only 23 OB-GYNs to serve a population of over half a million across the rest of the state.