PVP and Idaho in the News

"The fear is that the longer we go without this kind of care, the more that just becomes normal and people accept it as just the way things are.”

“We can’t get complacent, and when people hear abortion stories from their next-door neighbor or their sister-in-law, or their son’s preschool teacher, it is a powerful way to remind people that politics are affecting you every day.”

“You basically can’t get care unless you are seconds away from death. They’ll tell people, ‘Nope, sorry, you just have to wait.’ Wait to die? Wait to bleed out? Wait for what? And that’s absolutely mortifying.”

“Hundreds of people gathered at Matchwood Brewing Company in Sandpoint Sunday afternoon for an “UnHappy” hour to mourn the loss of the area’s only labor and delivery unit – and, with it, more than half a dozen nurses and doctors.”

“I can’t imagine how the circumstances might have been different if I had to travel all the way to Coeur d’Alene or if I had to go into the emergency room,” Jackson Quintano tells TODAY.com.

“An Idaho hospital has planned to stop delivering babies, with the medical center’s managers citing increasing criminalization of physicians and the inability to retain pediatricians as major reasons.”

“Without specifically referencing the state's abortion laws, the hospital said the legal and political climate was causing physicians to leave the hospital and it was becoming difficult to recruit replacements.”

“Her worst fears came true weeks after the ban went into effect, when she had to tell a patient that her pregnancy had a significant fetal abnormality. Cooper cried with the devastated couple in her office, and realized her hands were tied. She couldn’t offer any more care ― they had to go elsewhere.”

“Over beers at a local Sandpoint, Idaho, brewery, residents held a wake of sorts to mourn the closure of the labor and delivery ward at Bonner General, the city's only hospital. The hospital in part blamed Idaho's legal and political climate.”

Quintano says one reason she opposes the travel ban is because it divides the community: “Sandpoint's community and its cohesiveness is its greatest strength. But laws like this are dividing us. We don't know who to trust. We don't know who we can talk to.”

“You saw so much about abortion, like it was such a hot word, but it’s not even about that,” she says. “It’s about the medical rights that women have – that’s really what comes up. Women are feeling very scared about the care they’re going to get. They’re unsure about their medical care and whether they can trust the medical system.”

Jackson Quintano wanted to create a safe space for Idahoans to talk about their abortion experiences and to fight the shame that can surround the topic, so she started the Pro-Voice Project and created a play using personal stories about abortion.

“It seemed like with all the shame and stigma that surrounds the topic of abortion, it was really important to add some nuance to the discussion and hear peoples’ personal experiences with abortion,” Jackson Quintano said.

“A lot of those people for whom it’s going to get harder, they don’t have a lot of power,” Huntsberger said. “There’s no microphone readily accessible to them, so many of them are going to suffer in the shadows.”

The OB/GYN recounted a medical episode earlier this year in which a woman came into the emergency room after her water broke long before the fetus was viable, asking to be induced immediately. The woman was at high risk for infection or hemorrhage, and there was virtually no chance that her baby would make it to term – but, the OB/GYN said, the guidance shared by hospital leaders did not allow the doctors to end the pregnancy until the patient developed an infection the next morning. “It bothered us all night long,” said the OB/GYN. “We were dragging our feet, waiting for something to happen.”

“You know, when you do surgery like that, where somebody is having ongoing active bleeding, that's already high stress. And that sort of high stress-- like, I trained for that. I know what to do with that. I can handle that. Then you add in this other weird layer of, like, is her brother going to not understand that this was a not-viable pregnancy and that her life was at risk? And what about her mom? What about her partner? What about her sister?Do these people understand how serious this condition is? Or do they only understand that I removed a pregnancy that had a heartbeat? I don't know. How am I supposed to know?”

“I’ve had people tell me they would like to come to my events, but they don’t because they’re so fearful of what might happen,” Pro-Voice Project founder Jen Jackson Quintano said.

“The laws and the Legislature are preventing people from having families because of the fear that something could go horribly wrong. Not only can you have a loss of pregnancy, which is incredibly sad, but you could potentially lose your life as a pregnant woman in Idaho”