PROP 1: Vote yes, reduce Idaho’s burden on neighbors

Recently (September 6) M. Sanborn urged Idahoans to vote “no” on Proposition 1, the Reproductive Freedom and Privacy Act, which would return Idaho to more conventional posture regarding access to abortion. Currently it is effectively impossible for a woman to receive an abortion procedure in Idaho.  

Ms. Sanborn concludes her plea by exhorting Idahoans to “consider (the) long-term consequences (of Proposition 1)”. In this I completely agree with Ms. Sanborn.

Approximately 60% of all Americans and Idahoans prefer conventional access to abortion. Thus, a failure to pass Prop 1 would deny access to abortion for a majority of Idahoans because of the preferences of a minority.

Idaho’s current anti-abortion regime actively damages pre-natal care for women and fetuses. In the past five years, Idaho has lost approximately half of its ObGyn doctors because providing a procedural abortion is effectively a felony. Because many ObGyn doctors in Idaho feel that they cannot practice ethically without risking criminal liability, they have closed their practices or left Idaho entirely.

As a resident of Washington, I can’t vote on Idaho Prop 1. But I do have a personal interest in the outcome. About half of Idaho’s women live within a two hour drive of Washington and Oregon, where they can receive not only abortion care but actual prenatal care. Idaho, whose population is growing rapidly, is losing ObGyn doctors at a time when it needs more capacity. Washington and Oregon are covering Idaho’s shortcoming in prenatal care.

Idaho occasionally frets about its participation in the WWAMI program (education of doctors provided by the UW and WSU), because only about 70% the seats Idaho funds return to Idaho. The reason is not a defect in medical training, but rather to a defect in Idaho’s laws. You cannot expect doctors to practice in a state where they feel that they cannot practice ethically without risking loss of license or imprisonment.

If you would like to improve prenatal care in Idaho, vote “yes” on Prop 1.

J. D. SAHR

Otis Orchards