The New York Times Counts Idaho’s Missing Doctors — But Not Babies Saved

According to The New York Times, Idaho’s ban on abortion is making the state a more perilous place for women and a more dangerous location to give birth.

You read that correctly.

In this story, the Times’ diabolically convoluted logic roars into high gear. 

It seems that by banning the slaughter of innocent pre-born babies, women and babies are somehow worse off than they were prior to the overthrow of Roe.

How so?

“More than a third of Idaho’s OB-GYNs have stopped practicing obstetrics, left the state, closed their practices or retired since the ban took effect in August 2022,” the Old Grey Lady reports. “The impact of the exodus has rippled across the state.”

The insinuation, of course, is that fewer physicians in the state puts women at greater risk because there are fewer of them available for appointments, procedures and emergencies, and the remaining doctors are overwhelmed and thus providing substandard care.

What exactly are the numbers?

A recent study found that 114 of the 268 OB-GYNs practicing in the state of Idaho have either left the area or stopped practicing. During that same time frame, 20 new ones have arrived, making it a net loss of 94.

Yet, did they all really leave because Idaho banned abortion?

Predictably, the Times suggests that correlation proves causation — a gigantic leap that doesn’t seriously consider the very real possibility that doctors left for any number of thereasons cited in the story’s introduction.

Instead, the Times does what the radical, pro-abortion media outlet regularly likes to do – it paints a grim picture of the supposed horrible consequences of socially conservative policies.

To try and make their case for why banning abortion is, ironically, dangerous for both women and children, the lengthy piece by Lisa Lerer features anecdotes of women whose care was either delayed or compromised by Idaho’s OB-GYN shortage. At the same time, the author fails to share any specific data (such as before-and-after rates of maternal mortality) demonstrating that giving birth in Idaho is more dangerous in a post-Roe era. Even in the difficult stories shared, there’s no proof the outcomes would have differed had abortion been legal in the state.

What we do know, though, is that between 2010 and 2020, an average of 1,543 pre-born babies were killed each year in Idaho. Last year, there were 7, and all of them were deemed medically necessary to save the life of the mother.

It’s curious that The New York Times piece goes to great lengths to detail the plight of mothers and their babies navigating this departure of physicians supposedly inspired by the pro-life law but never mentions the thousands of children whose lives have been saved in the state since abortion was banned.

The Times does acknowledge that without an OB-GYN residency program in the state, it has “no pipeline of talent” for recruiting physicians. But then the paper quotes Susie Keller, CEO of the Idaho Medical Association, who suggests the state law that in her words criminalizes “evidence-based care for pregnancy complications” is likely driving physicians away.

Yet, how many OB-GYNs have been prosecuted to date? Zero.

Incidentally, a national study examined and compared 12 states with the strongest abortion restrictions to 14 states with liberal abortion laws and found only a modest decline in available OB-GYN doctors. That’s hardly surprising given that many abortion doctors are classified as OB-GYNs. 

In its piece, The New York Times is helping to fan a propaganda campaign around “Proposition 1” – a ballot initiative that Idaho voters will be deciding on November 3.

Deceptively titled the “Reproductive Freedom and Privacy Act,” abortion radicals are seeking to create a statutory “right” to abortion until fetal viability. By voting “No” on the ballot, voters would leave in place Idaho’s Defense of Life Act, which protects babies from the point of conception. 

Idaho’s women and their families may well benefit from having more OB-GYNs, but legalizing the killing of pre-born children is neither a necessary nor biblically sound way to encourage more of them to hang out a shingle in the state.