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.
On top of that, states with much less people in them (e.g. Idaho) “count more” in Presidential elections due to a historical wrench in the machinery put there to serve slave owners. It’s called “The electoral college” but it’s really “let’s keep slaves college”.
Yeah they kept that in place after the slave states fought to destroy America and were defeated. Which, in retrospect, was really stupid.
Exciting!