Dispatches

DOCTORS FLEE STRICT ABORTION BAN IN IDAHO. At a brewery in Sandpoint, Idaho, hundreds of people recently held a wake of sorts to mourn the closure of the city’s only labor and delivery ward, collateral damage from the state’s Republican-led effort to criminalize nearly all abortions, Sarah Varney reported at Kaiser Health News (5/2).

Jen Quintano, the event’s organizer and a Sandpoint resident who runs a tree service, called to the crowd, packed shoulder to shoulder as children ran underfoot, “Raise your hand if you were born at Bonner General! Raise your hand if you gave birth at Bonner General!” Nearly everyone raised their hand.

In May, the hospital, founded in 1949 near the shores of Lake Pend Oreille, will stop providing services for expectant mothers, forcing patients across northern Idaho to travel at least an additional hour for care. In June, a second Idaho hospital, Valor Health, in the rural city of Emmett, will also halt labor and delivery services.

Those decisions came within months of Idaho’s abortion ban, one of the nation’s strictest, going into effect in August 2022. Physicians can now perform the medical procedure only to stop the death of a pregnant woman or in the case of rape or incest that has been reported to the police.

In March, Bonner General Health officials said the law was a driving force in the closure, noting Idaho’s legal and political climate. “Highly respected, talented physicians are leaving,” the hospital wrote in a statement. “Recruiting replacements will be extraordinarily difficult. In addition, the Idaho Legislature continues to introduce and pass bills that criminalize physicians for medical care nationally recognized as the standard of care.”

Amelia Huntsberger, an OB-GYN, has delivered babies and treated miscarriages at Bonner General for more than a decade. Soon after abortion became illegal, she saw a patient with a ruptured ectopic pregnancy — where a fertilized egg grows outside the uterus — and faced a dangerous dilemma. The state law did not allow physicians to terminate ectopic pregnancies, which are never viable.

“I went to the emergency room and evaluated the patient,” Huntsberger said. “Her vital signs were stable at the time of my evaluation, but I knew based on her imaging we needed to move quickly to stabilize her.”

Huntsberger said her duty as a doctor was clear — to prioritize the safety of her patient — but added that she “also knew that I was putting myself potentially at risk of felony charges, which would have a minimum of two years in jail, [and] loss of my medical license for six months.” She added, “I took care of multiple cases of ruptured ectopic pregnancy in the first weeks following that law going into effect.”

The Idaho Supreme Court has since ruled that the law does not apply to ectopic or molar pregnancies, a rare complication caused by an unusual growth of cells. But physicians say that limited change does not account for many common pregnancy complications that can escalate rapidly.

The effects of the ban are being felt statewide. In Boise, the state capital, Lauren Miller, an OB-GYN, resigned in May from her position at one of the state’s largest hospitals, St. Luke’s Health System, further shrinking the state’s already minuscule corps of maternal fetal medicine specialists.

As a doctor who cares for complex, high-risk cases, Miller said, she’s had to send patients out of state to end dangerous pregnancies, including a woman with a serious kidney disease.

“I could very easily have taken care of that patient along with my partners,” she said, noting that the Boise-based medical center has kidney specialists and an intensive care unit. “Instead, she had to leave her family and fly several more hours away to receive care in an expeditious time frame. It’s just not what we signed up to do.”

Miller said the abortion ban and threat of prosecution were not the only factors that drove her to resign. She cited lawmakers’ failure to extend postpartum Medicaid coverage beyond two months and to renew the Maternal Mortality Review Committee. The state panel investigates deaths of pregnant patients and new mothers and whether they could have been prevented.

Directors of women’s health care services at Idaho hospitals are bracing for what’s next: 75 of 117 Idaho OB-GYNs recently surveyed by the Idaho Coalition for Safe Reproductive Health Care said they were considering leaving the state. Of those, nearly 100% — 73 of 75 — cited Idaho’s restrictive abortion laws.

An exodus could affect broader medical coverage for women who rely on OB-GYNs for routine and urgent gynecological care unrelated to pregnancy, like menstrual disorders, endometriosis, and pelvic pain.

Idaho is one of 15 states that have implemented strict abortion laws since last year’s Supreme Court decision overturning Roe v. Wade. And while there is no official nationwide count yet, anecdotal evidence shows that women’s health specialists from states where abortion is criminalized are beginning to relocate to places like Washington state, which has strong abortion rights laws.

In Seattle, for example, about 270 miles west of Sandpoint, Sarah Villareal, an OB-GYN, is now practicing medicine without fear of prosecution after moving from Texas, where performing an abortion is a felony punishable by up to life in prison. In Texas, private citizens can file civil lawsuits against anyone who “aids or abets” an abortion, earning a minimum of $10,000 for cases prosecuted successfully.

The difference between Texas and Washington is stark, said Villareal, noting an atmosphere of fear and distrust at many Texas hospitals. She recalled caring for a patient in a Gulf Coast emergency room who was having a miscarriage, though the fetus still had a heartbeat. The patient, already in physical and emotional crisis, had to navigate a legal issue, too.

“She was trying to figure out if me as the provider was going to report her if she did decide that she wanted to do a procedure to save her life over the life of her fetus,” Villareal recalled. “And the worst part was I could assure her that I’m going to try to do everything that I can for her, but I could not assure her that someone else in the emergency room or someone else in the operating room was not going to report her.”

Kathryn Tiger and Allie Ward, first-year medical students in Moscow, Idaho, are both planning to become surgeons, though both say they intend not to practice in Idaho.

“I wouldn’t feel safe here as a provider, and I wouldn’t feel safe here as a patient,” said Tiger, 25.

Ward said the new laws criminalizing abortion in the state are constricting the ability of physicians to provide comprehensive care.

Back in Sandpoint, Huntsberger and her family are saying their goodbyes to Idaho, saddened by the idea that some patients left behind may be in medical peril.

“It’s heartbreaking to me to think about what it will mean for a woman experiencing a pregnancy crisis,” the doctor said.

But, she added, “This isn’t a safe place to practice medicine anymore.”

CHOICE SUPPORTERS HOPE TO PUT ABORTION ON FLA. BALLOT IN 2024. Planned Parenthood, the ACLU, and other groups are launching an effort to place a constitutional amendment on Florida’s 2024 general election ballot that would both undo the six-week abortion ban that Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis signed into law in April and allow the procedure to take place up to 24 weeks into a pregnancy. However, not only would this proposal need to win 60% of the vote in order to pass, it also needs to overcome several hurdles to even get on the ballot in the first place, Jeff Singer reported at DailyKos (5/6).

First, abortion rights advocates need to turn in about 892,000 valid signatures by Feb. 1, a total that represents 8% of the total number of votes cast in the last presidential election. That’s not all, though, because Florida requires that they collect 8% of the districtwide vote from at least half of the state’s 28 congressional districts, a task that got tougher after DeSantis pushed through an aggressive gerrymander last year.

That’s not the only concern: DeSantis also has signed laws making it tougher to collect petitions. One rule makes it illegal to pay people based on the number of signatures they gather—something that experts say has doubled the cost of qualifying for the ballot. The conservative state Supreme Court presents yet another obstacle as well, as its members have prevented proposed amendments from reaching the ballot. In 2021, notably, the high court prevented two different recreational marijuana amendments from going forward after ruling that the proposals were confusingly worded.

If pro-choice groups overcome all of this and reach the 2024 ballot, though, they may be able to take the 60% they need to prevail. Supporters have pointed to a March survey from the University of North Florida that found that only 22% of registered voters backed “a ban on abortion after six weeks of pregnancy in Florida, with no exceptions for rape or incest,” while 75% were against the idea.

MAGA IS ON PRECIPICE. YOUNG VOTERS CAN PUSH THEM OFF. Republicans expected a red wave victory in the 2022 elections, as is typically the case in midterm elections when the other party controls the White House. Yet as bad as the results were for them, Philip Bump notes in the Washington Post (5/3), the cycle would likely have been far worse “if the electorate actually looked like the US population.”

Unsurprisingly, both White and older voters punched above their weight last year, with White voters accounting for 74% of the electorate but just 59% of the population, and 60-and-up voters representing 41% of the electorate compared to being just 30% of population.

Conversely, younger voters and those of color were underrepresented in the 2022 electorate, and both heavily favor Democrats.

Midterm exit polls, for instance, show young voters favored House Democrats over House Republicans by nearly 2 to 1, or 63%-35%. So the math is simple: Higher turnout among young voters boosts the showing of Democratic candidates, which is part of what drove huge Democratic victories in the two key battlegrounds of Michigan and Pennsylvania, as an analysis of voting data by Tufts University’s Center for Information & Research on Civic Learning and Engagement (CIRCLE) found. This is exactly why Republicans are openly talking about how to suppress youth turnout, Kerry Eleveld notes at Daily Kos (5/5).

Meanwhile, Bump also notes that Latino voters accounted for the largest racial disparity between percentage of the population (19%) and of the electorate (10%). But the gap was partly exacerbated by the fact that Latinos account for just 16% of US citizens.

In all, adjusting the ‘22 exit polls on race and age to match actual demographic populations suggests that Democratic House candidates would have likely secured more votes than Republicans in several close races.

There is more data that should worry Republicans. According to a Washington Post analysis of census data, Black voters, youth, and college graduates accounted for some of the largest voter dropoff between the last two midterm cycles. While White voter turnout between 2018 and 2022 sagged by just 1.5 points, Black turnout plummeted by 10 points, from 52% to 42%.

University of Florida political scientist Michael McDonald believes that deficit “likely cost the Democrats the Wisconsin Senate seat” due to depressed turnout in Milwaukee. It worked out for Republicans in the short term, but it gives Democrats a larger pool of potential future voters going forward.

These data analyses bolster the argument of political strategist Simon Rosenberg that getting hyper-focused on increasing turnout among key Democratic constituencies could help Democrats secure 55% of the national vote next year, adding nearly 4 points to Joe Biden’s 51.3% in 2020. With Black turnout recently strong in presidential years (though it can’t be taken for granted), Rosenberg sees strong growth potential among four groups: under 45-year-olds, Latinos, anti-MAGA Republicans, and voters whose political views have or can be shifted due to the Republican Party’s hard-right turn (like college-educated suburban White people). If Democrats succeed in boosting those groups, a 55% Biden performance could break the MAGA movement’s back, following on the three dismal consecutive cycles it has already served up to Republicans.

UAW HOLDS OFF ENDORSING BIDEN IN BID TO ENSURE PRO-WORKER EV TRANSITION. The United Auto Workers is withholding its endorsement of President Joe Biden in the early stages of the 2024 race in an attempt to extract concessions that would ensure the nascent transition to all-electric vehicles benefits labor as well as the environment.

“We need to get our members organized behind a pro-worker, pro-climate, and pro-democracy political program that can deliver for the working class,” says a memo written by UAW president Shawn Fain and shared internally, Kenny Stancil reported at Common Dreams (5/4).

Fain, an electrician from Indiana, won a March runoff election to lead the Detroit-based union, defeating incumbent Ray Curry of the powerful Administration Caucus in a major upset. Fain’s victory, one of several in which challengers from the insurgent Members United slate prevailed, gave reformers control of UAW’s direction. The new president quickly promised a more confrontational approach, decrying “give-back unionism” and vowing to “put the members back in the driver’s seat, regain the trust of the rank and file, and put the companies on notice.”

A reinvigorated UAW is also putting Biden on notice by holding onto its coveted endorsement. With 400,000 active members and a heavy presence in the battleground state of Michigan, the union remains a significant political force. Its goal is to pressure Biden into improving federal policies related to electric vehicle (EV) manufacturing.

“The federal government is pouring billions into the electric vehicle transition, with no strings attached and no commitment to workers,” Fain wrote in his new memo. “The EV transition is at serious risk of becoming a race to the bottom. We want to see national leadership have our back on this before we make any commitments.”

BIDEN MARKS 200TH MASS SHOOTING WITH ANOTHER CALL FOR ASSAULT WEAPONS BAN. A right-wing gunman’s attack at an outlet mall in Allen, Texas, a suburb of Dallas. claimed the lives of eight people, including three children and a security guard, before the attacker was killed by a police officer who happened to be at the mall (5/6). The Gun Violence Archives counted it as the 200th mass shooting of 2023. The following day, President Joe Biden commented, “Yesterday, an assailant in tactical gear armed with an AR-15 style assault weapon gunned down innocent people in a shopping mall, and not for the first time. Such an attack is too shocking to be so familiar. And yet, American communities have suffered roughly 200 mass shootings already this year, according to leading counts. More than 14,000 of our fellow citizens have lost their lives, credible estimates show. The leading cause of death for American kids is gun violence.

“Since I signed the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act into law and took two dozen executive actions to stem the tide of gun violence, we have made some progress. States are banning assault weapons, expanding red flag laws and more — but it’s not enough. We need more action, faster to save lives. ...

“Once again I ask Congress to send me a bill banning assault weapons and high-capacity magazines. Enacting universal background checks. Requiring safe storage. Ending immunity for gun manufacturers. I will sign it immediately. We need nothing less to keep our streets safe.”

There are no signs of Republican support in Congress for a ban on assault weapons and high-capacity magazines, but a bill to raise the minimum age to buy most AR-style rifles advanced from a state House committee in the Texas Legislature, the Dallas Morning News reported (5/8).

The bill, which was urged by parents of children who died in the Uvalde school massacre last year, is unlikely to become law, and it’s unclear whether it will even be debated on the House floor. But the committee vote, with two Republicans joining all six Democrats on the Select Committee on Community Safety, represents the most substantial movement in recent years to tighten gun laws in the GOP-led Legislature, which has steadily loosened restrictions even in the face of previous mass shootings. Gov. Greg Abbott (R) has not supported raising the gun-buying age and said the focus should stay on increasing mental health funding and further penalizing criminals caught with guns. The legislative session ends on Memorial Day.

US LEADS UKRAINE IN CIVILIAN GUN DEATHS. After President Biden noted the death toll of shootings has passed 14,000 this year, a commenter, Geekydee, at DailyKos.com noted (5/7), “To put these numbers in perspective, that 14,000 number of deaths is over one and a half times as many civilian deaths in the Ukraine war this year of 8,709.” Another commenter replied that the number of civilian deaths in Ukraine far exceeds the “official” number of 8,709, as the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights acknowledged when it reported the confirmed casualties (5/1).

“OHCHR believes that the actual figures are considerably higher, as the receipt of information from some locations where intense hostilities have been going on has been delayed and many reports are still pending corroboration. This concerns, for example, Mariupol (Donetsk region), Lysychansk, Popasna, and Sievierodonetsk (Luhansk region), where there are allegations of numerous civilian casualties,” the UN office noted.

Then again, Russian soldiers have been killing Ukrainian civilians since Feb. 24, 2022, and the US civilian casualties Biden cited are only those recorded by the Gun Violence Archives in 2023 through May 6. GVA tallied 44,352 gun deaths in 2022, including 1,681 children through age 17, and 646 mass shootings. So by that count, the US is still more deadly for civilians than Ukraine is.

From The Progressive Populist, June 1, 2023

Populist.com