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Re: The Shining City Upon a Hill
Idaho’s murky abortion law is driving doctors out of the state
The state of Idaho is in the beginning stages of a grand exodus. Doctors – specifically, those who care for pregnant women and perform abortions – are fleeing the state due to new abortion restrictions.
Doctors like Lauren Miller, who has been treating women and performing abortions in Boise for the last five years. Her greatest fear? “Being tried as a felon simply for saving someone’s life,”
Miller specializes in maternal-fetal medicine at the hospital where she works and handles high-risk pregnancies. She treats complications such as ectopic pregnancies, where a fertilized egg is outside the uterus, pre-eclampsia and other dangerous conditions.
After Idaho passed a near-total abortion ban, Miller and other doctors like her say they are unsure about how to continue to do their job.
Last August, Idaho made abortion illegal, with two exceptions.
An abortion can still be performed if the mother’s life is in danger, and in the case of rape or incest, but only after a police report has been filed and provided to the doctor. Even then, it’s restricted to the first trimester. But Miller says the law is still somewhat murky.
“We have a death exception and that is it without any other guidelines,” she said. “If I don’t act fast enough to save your life, prevent you from getting septic, I could be liable for civil cases … malpractice. But if I act too quickly and I’m not 100% certain that the patient is going to die from the complication she’s sustaining, then I could be guilty of a felony.”
“We don’t know what that bar is and no one wants to be the guinea pig first test case of that,” .
State Representative Brent J. Crane, the lead negotiator on the bill, characterized the law as “a work in progress,” acknowledging to CNN that lawmakers are going to have to “come back and do more work to define what constitutes a risk to a mother’s life in those highly nuanced situations.”
Unable to help
Complicating matters more, the new law, which went into effect in August 2022, allows certain family members of a patient to sue providers who perform an abortion for at least $20,000 if the procedure breaks the abortion law.
Doctors in those cases also face suspension of their medical license, felony charges and even prison time.
Beyond that, Idaho’s governor also signed a law that says anyone helping a minor travel out of state to terminate a pregnancy – without parental consent – is guilty of a crime.
Miller, who is also head of the Idaho Coalition for Safe Reproductive Health, calls it “moral injury.” It saddens her that she cannot provide the care she’s been trained to offer.
“It goes against what we’re taught as physicians to protect the health of our patients,” she said.
So, she decided to move her practice to Colorado, where abortion is still legal. And she’s not the only one leaving.
Of the 117 doctors she informally surveyed in Idaho, 75 answered “yes” or “maybe” when asked if they were considering leaving the state at least in part because of the abortion laws.
Dr. Kylie Cooper, who worked alongside Miller, has already moved with her family out of Idaho and is now practicing in Minnesota, where abortion is legal.
“It was a really difficult decision to make … there was a wave of emotions, lots of fear and anxiety for my patients and also for myself…my husband and I had many conversations about what would it actually look like if I was charged with a felony and then went to prison,” .
Cooper says she feels much safer after leaving Idaho.
“To watch somebody get sicker in front of your eyes and not be able to help them is hard to comprehend,” she said. “That is not the way I was trained to practice medicine. We don’t let people get so sick when we have all the tools to help them.”
‘The beginning of the collapse of an entire system’
Back in Idaho, Miller says five of the nine remaining full-time maternal-fetal medicine physicians in the state will have left by the end of this year.
These are the doctors who deal with the most significant pregnancy complications, an essential service to their patients.
Jim Souza, the chief physician executive at St. Luke’s Medical Center in Boise: “We’re at the beginning of the collapse of an entire system of care.”
He likened it to a Jenga tower: “You can pull out certain planks and the tower still stands,” he said. “But pull out too many planks or certain planks and the whole thing falls … unfortunately that’s the position we’re in right now.”
Souza says that Idaho has already lost many of its maternal-fetal medicine physicians.
“If the momentum doesn’t shift, and we continue to pull planks out of the Jenga tower of this system of care,” he said, “there’s no question that that there will be bad perinatal outcomes for moms and babies. You need these providers in order to provide the safety net.”
And because there are no ob-gyn residencies in Idaho, finding doctors willing to relocate given the abortion laws on the books is a real challenge.
Still, said Souza, “I’m an optimist at heart.”
While doctors in Idaho are already warning the public about the risks these abortion restrictions pose to the health of expectant mothers, there won’t be any data to show the real impact these laws have on the maternal mortality rate in Idaho.
That’s because this July, Idaho’s state legislature is due to sunset the Maternal Mortality Review Committee, which tracks pregnancy deaths.
In light of that, Miller warned, “We won’t see the bad outcomes that occur secondary to these laws being in place. It’s like we’re trying to hide that information from the public so we can’t see the repercussions of not having access to safe abortion care. I have no doubt that the mortality rate will rise.”Comment
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Re: The Shining City Upon a Hill
... what spy ballon fiasco? The ballon was safely brought down over the ocean and the wreakage was recovered for detailed analysis.
The US does not shoot first and ask questions later as many uniformed Republican sympathizers would like.
The writer of this article is heavily biased to criticize the Biden administration at every real or false opportunity.Last edited by SalesServiceGuy; 05-14-2023, 01:01 AM.Comment
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Re: The Shining City Upon a Hill
News Flash Bucko 3 or more balloons under the Trump Administration and he did nothing
Top general says Trump-era spy balloons flew over the U.S. undetected - POLITICO
Wow you really be pissedComment
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Adversity temporarily visits a strong man but stays with the weak for a lifetime.Comment
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Re: The Shining City Upon a Hill
Biden has put hjs finger on the biggest threat currently facing the USA. Yesterday Joe gave the commencement speech at Howard University - a black college. He told the black students that the biggest threat they face is White Supremacy. He added that he wasn't just saying that because he was speaking at an all black college. lol
I'm 55 years old. White. Male. I live in Mississippi. Yet, I've never met a white supremist. I've never been recruited. Where are they hiding? And why are they hiding from white folks like me?
This is another tactic to get the black base fired up heading into election season. He's playing with fire.
Biden blasted for calling ‘white supremacy’ ‘most dangerous terrorist threat’ at college speech: ‘Pure evil’
Conservative Twitter users ripped President Joe Biden for claiming that White supremacy is the "most dangerous terrorist threat" in America during a commencement address at Howard University this weekend.
Critics accused Biden of using the opportunity to inflame racial tension in the United States.
The 46th president addressed the graduates from the historical Black college at Washington D.C.’s Capital One Arena Saturday, speaking to them about the threats they face from the division among their own country.
Biden provided a line on White supremacy being the main threat to the nation including the graduates as they go forward with their lives after school.
After he hammered home the dangers of White supremacy, he assured his audience he wasn’t just saying that because he was at a Black school.
At the beginning of his statement Biden talked about America’s battle with racism from the time of its inception, saying, "We know American history has not always been a fairy tale. From the start, it’s been a constant push and pull for more than 240 years, between the best of us – the American ideal that we’re all created equal – and the worst of us, a harsh reality that racism has long torn us apart."
"It’s a battle that’s never really over," he said, adding, "But on the best days, enough of us have the guts and hearts to stand up for the best in us, to choose love over hate, unity over disunity, progress over retreat…"
Biden then zeroed in on White supremacy, saying, "…To stand against the poison of White supremacy as I did in my inaugural address." He then called it "the most dangerous terrorist threat to our homeland." The audience erupted in applause.
Pointing his finger, he added, "And I’m not just saying this because I’m at a Black HBCU. I say this wherever I go." The audience laughed.
Adversity temporarily visits a strong man but stays with the weak for a lifetime.Comment
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Re: The Shining City Upon a Hill
After it had traversed over multiple US military installations gathering data and sending it to the Chinese.
The excuse from left extremist administration was that they waited until the 'balloon' was nor over populated areas. Well they had ample time to do so from when it was first detected entering US airspace west if the Aleutian IslandsThe US does not shoot first and ask questions later as many uniformed Republican sympathizers would like.
Spoken like a true extreme leftist who hates anything to the right of your extreme leftist position.The writer of this article is heavily biased to criticize the Biden administration at every real or false opportunity.Comment
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Re: The Shining City Upon a Hill
CCP-Controlled, State-Owned Firm Behind Chinese Cash Allegedly Funneled To Hunter Biden, Documents Show | The Daily CallerComment
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Re: The Shining City Upon a Hill
You are an extreme leftist and you just proved my point.
Leftists try to ban the truth. Books with explicit sexual content do not belong in grade school libraries. You can still find them at local adult stores, online booksellers and even the Adult section of public libraries.Comment
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Re: The Shining City Upon a Hill
Key Player Announces She's Leaving Biden Administration
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Surprise 
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