The abortion ban will drive aspiring doctors out of state. Who will care for Idahoans?

Elana King-Nakaoka

The Idaho Supreme Court ruled that Idaho’s near-total abortion ban can go into effect in a matter of days. The court said that the petitioners who challenged the new laws failed to prove that enforcing the ban would cause “irreparable harm.”

The court is profoundly wrong. As a concerned Idaho medical student, I strongly oppose these new laws because they will cause irreparable harm. At graduation, I will swear an oath to do no harm or injustice to my patients. Idaho’s abortion ban is at odds with this oath.

Abortion care saves lives every day, and we are already seeing the dangerous consequences of restrictive abortion bans in Texas and Ohio. Even though these new bans allow doctors to defend themselves from prosecution in the cases of rape, incest, and life-threatening scenarios, pregnant patients are being denied care for miscarriages, ectopic pregnancies, and other complications due to physicians’ fear and confusion about the new laws. The fear is justified. For example, once the Idaho ban takes effect, “any healthcare professional who performs, attempts to perform or assists in performing an abortion ... will face imprisonment and professional license suspension or permanent license revocation,” according to the Department of Justice.

In America, being pregnant is already one of the most dangerous experiences of a person’s life. Our country has the highest maternal mortality rate in the developed world. Hundreds of patients die each year and over 50,000 are severely injured due to childbirth and pregnancy complications.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/abortion-ban-drive-aspiring-docs-100000219.html