A hospital in Idaho has announced that it will stop delivering babies
partly due to the current political climate, that's the argument here.
Now in a press release from the hospital, Bonner General Health officials
cited a shortage of pediatricians and decreasing number of deliveries.
The release also pointed to the legal and
political climate in a state where trigger laws banned nearly all
abortions after the fall of the constitutional right to an abortion.
So, I'm gonna read an excerpt from their statement on why they're shutting
down these services at the hospital.
Highly respected, talented physicians are leaving,
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.
And so these anti-abortion laws really do have an effect on
physicians jobs and they're terrified of being sued.
They're terrified of being targeted for performing care that women need,
and so many of them are no longer working in some of these red states.
They're deciding to move to other states where they can practice without the fear
of getting sued by private citizens.
Now, they say they will try to perform deliveries of babies up until May 19th.
The hospital has delivered 265 babies in 2022
which is actually a 37.5% decrease from 2008.
I wanted to mention that because the decrease in birth rates
is also part of this, so I don't wanna leave that part out as well,
but that in addition to the climate for physicians has led to this issue.
>> Yeah, so, a couple of things stood out to me here.
One was a doctor telling us, the report is telling a story of doctors
letting women get sicker and sicker with their pregnancies
that they knew were not going to reach a healthy conclusion.
But they were afraid if they acted earlier to help the mother that Republicans would
say, no, it wasn't clear enough yet, so you're going to jail, it's a felony, okay?
And so you could five years at a minimum, I mean,
there's a lot of different laws here that apply, but that's one of them, okay?
So, they're letting the women get so badly in danger so
that it's clear enough that they could operate, right?
That is a terrible thing to do, okay, so that's already on that alone,
that's insane and we should not do that.
So number two, doctors are rightfully saying,
wait, I can go practice in a state where I'm not going to be in
danger of being put in jail or being fined out of existences.
So, I thought by the way Republicans wanted tort reform, but
apparently not, okay?
So, I'm gonna lose everything I have because I actually did the right thing and
I treat the person who needed the treatment.
Well, I don't wanna risk that, well, I don't blame him,
who wants to live in a Taliban state.
You make the right move and somebody characterizes it as wrong and
now next thing the Taliban throws you in jail.
So, this is where we are, if you don't think it's hand man's tale,
you're kidding yourself, that's exactly what's happening in Idaho.
>> I mean, look,
rural areas already have difficulty in getting the health care they need.
So, these anti-abortion laws happen to make the situation even worse,
I can get into those numbers in just a moment.
But first, let's actually talk about the anti-abortion laws in the state of Idaho,
what do they look like?
Well, a trigger law passed in 2020 criminalizes the procedure in
almost all cases with possible defenses if a doctor determines
it necessary to save the life of a pregnant woman.
Or if the pregnant woman has reported rape or incest to law enforcement,
which by the way, that puts the woman in a terrible position because then she has
to go through that awful process of our justice system.
A medical provider who violates the law can face felony charges
punishable by two to five years in prison along with suspension or
revocation of their medical license.
So, you can understand why it would be difficult to recruit doctors in states
like Idaho, and the Idaho Republican Party incredibly vicious on this issue.
They don't even hide it, they want to go further.
The Idaho Republican Party platform declares that
abortion is murder from the moment of fertilization and calls for
its prevention regardless of the circumstances of conception,
including persons conceived in rape and incest.
The platform says the party supports criminalizing all abortions within
the state.
So, that's where they're coming from, right, and it's not about saving lives.
You look at the states that have these insanely strict bans on women's
reproductive rights, and they tend to have incredibly high maternal
mortality rates, incredibly high rates of childhood poverty.
I mean, if you genuinely care about saving children's lives,
wouldn't you focus on ensuring that they're living in safe healthy
environments that they have all the resources they need to thrive?
No, who cares about that, right, we'd much rather punish women for whatever reason.
And then finally, access to obstetric services has been on the decline for
years in rural areas with at least 89 obstetrics units
in rural US hospitals closing their doors between 2015 and
2019 according to the American Hospital Association.
More than half of rural counties home to 2.2 million women of
child bearing age are now maternity care deserts, it's insane.
>> Yeah, look, I'm sure that there are people who consider themselves quote
unquote prolife that really got convinced that life begins at conception when
the zygon are the same exact thing as fully grown independent human beings.
I'm sure some of them genuinely believe that, okay, but
the Republican leadership and the evangelical leadership are complete liars.
So, Anna told me about this, I've got small part of it in my book, for
five years after Roe V Wade, evangelical leaders and
Republican politicians were 50/50 on it, they did not have an objection to it.
But then Paul Myrick ran a campaign where four Republicans won running on
the issue of abortion.
And all of a sudden the Republican party and
Christian leaders in the country were outraged at the idea of abortion.
Remember, I've told you a million times, you can go look it up in numbers,
the Bible is actually pro-abortion.
That's why evangelical leaders were probably, I don't know, I mean,
the Bible says abortion is good if you think your wife cheated on you.
But like, we could win elections with it, perfect, and why did it work?
For two reasons, one is they're both super depressing,
one is some folks like the idea of the people that were in charge,
staying in charge and who was it, who were in charge?
Men, and they didn't like the equality of women,
this is a way of controlling their bodies from the same people who said,
liberals and progressives, they're going to control our lives.
No, they wanna control our lives and they're doing projection,
it doesn't get any more control in your life then you're not allowed to do what
you think is right for your family, with your own body.
And the government should seize your body and tell you what to do with it, okay,
that is textbook controlling your life.
And then but the main reason was they got to do the propaganda that works so
brilliantly for them all the way up until now, the Democrats are killing children.
Aren't you gonna stop the Democrats from murdering poor innocent babies?
That's why they're doing it, it's a giant lie, they don't even believe it.
>> No, they don't, it's a way to accumulate political power.
And what's incredible is even after the 2022 midterm elections where the reversal
of Roe ended up being a political liability for the Republican Party,
they're still running with it, they're still going with it.
And so, I mean, I don't know if it's going to change,
if it's gonna end up actually working out well for them in the future.
But one thing that I do know is that ordinary people don't like government
making decisions on their behalf when it comes to the most intimate parts
of their lives, period.
People actually do want freedom, and when we talk about big government,
we want it when it comes to corporations that are so deregulated, so
monopolized in some cases, that they screw us over.
But that's the only area where the right wing actually wants small government.
When it comes to our personal lives, when it comes to the most intimate parts of our
lives, they love big government, they can't get enough of it.
>> By the way, Republicans,
a lot of you don't even believe that these restrictions, right?
You don't want doctors to leave, you're pro-choice, etc., how do I know that?
Because look at Kansas, they voted overwhelmingly for pro-choice, Montana
voted overwhelmingly pro-choice, almost every state in the nation is pro-choice.
But yet your Republican politicians keep passing these draconian laws, so
why don't you rise up and say no, I like doctor, I don't want to imprison doctors,
we won't have any you morons, right?
Doctors save our lives, they save my daughter's life, my uncle's life,
what are you doing you monsters?
And yes, I like women and I believe that they should be able to control their own
bodies, they should be equal to us.
Rise up, otherwise, they do represent you and you're okay with it.