Doctors left Idaho after abortion ban, study confirms [View all]
Idaho lost more than a third of its practicing obstetrician doctors after the state’s near-total abortion ban took effect, a new study published in a peer-reviewed academic journal confirms.
The study — published Thursday in the JAMA Network Open, a division of the Journal of the American Medical Association — found that Idaho lost 35% of its doctors who practiced in obstetrics. In total, Idaho lost 94 of those doctors out of 268 between August 2022 and December 2024, the study found.
Idaho’s abortion ban took effect in 2022, after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned national abortion protections. Some OB-GYNs, including maternal-fetal medicine specialists, said publicly that they were leaving because of the ban.
“These results provide a stark picture of a rapidly declining maternal health workforce in our state,” the study’s lead author, Dr. Edward McEachern, said in a statement.
The study appears to confirm findings from a report in February 2024 by the Idaho Physician Well-Being Action Collaborative that found Idaho lost 22% of its practicing obstetricians since the state’s abortion bans took effect.
https://washingtonstatestandard.com/briefs/doctors-left-idaho-after-abortion-ban-study-confirms/
I'm sure a lot of other red states are doing as well.
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