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If you are a woman in Idaho, you are not free. You are not free to obtain pregnancy care that is the standard of care in free states. Or to have the lowest possible risk for pregnancy-related death for yourself or for your baby. You are not free to visit another state without Big Brother monitoring you. 

10-20% of pregnancies end in miscarriage from problems with fetal development, and often a woman needs a medical procedure to prevent infection, bleeding or even death. That procedure is now illegal in Idaho. In Idaho, your doctor could go to jail for helping you. That’s why 22% of OB/GYN doctors have left practice in Idaho since 2022.

Idaho’s mothers are dying from pregnancy and childbirth at an appallingly high and rising rate. States with restrictive laws regarding women’s freedom of healthcare have on average a 62% higher rate of maternal death. Even before 2022, Idaho had some of the worst restrictions on a woman’s bodily autonomy, and maternal death rates increased in Idaho by 227% from 2019 to 2020. Despite (or because of) the rising death rate, the Idaho Legislature decided to stop recording maternal deaths. Idaho became the only state without a Maternal Mortality Review Committee. That committee was 100% paid for by the federal government, not the state of Idaho, so it was not a spending issue.

Want to fix this? Vote. Only 7% of Idaho Republicans voted in the 2024 primary, so your vote counts. Go to www.vote.gov to get started.

CARRIE ROLLER, MD MPH

Sandpoint