In 1936, American sociologist Robert K. Merton published a paper titled “The Unanticipated Consequences of Purposive Social Action,” which would later find its way into the American lexicon as “Merton’s Law of Unintended Consequences” or simply “the law of unintended consequences.”
The thing about “unintended consequences,” however, is that they must not only be unintended, but unforeseen. It doesn’t really count as an unintended consequence if literally anyone who thought about it for more than five seconds could have told you this is what would happen. When that happens, it’s called the “The Law of ‘We Knew This Would Happen, Everyone Told Us This Would Happen, But We Didn’t Give A Fuck.’”
A perfect example of this law would be that yet another labor and delivery unit in Idaho has closed, in part due to “challenges in securing consistent coverage.”
As of April 1, the West Valley Medical Center in Canyon County, Idaho, will no longer provide obstetric services.
This will be the third labor and delivery unit to close in less than a year in Idaho, where abortion is banned even in medical emergencies and anyone performing or assisting in an abortion could be sentenced to up to five years in prison.
A report published last week in the Idaho Statesman revealed that the number of practicing obstetricians in the state has decreased by 22 percent since the law took effect — declining from 227 in 2022 to about 176 in 2023, with only two new obstetricians coming to the state in that timespan. That’s a loss of about 51 obstetricians.
“Highly respected, talented physicians are leaving. Recruiting replacements will be extraordinarily difficult,” read a press release put out by Bonner General Health in Sandpoint when they were forced to close. “In addition, the Idaho Legislature continues to introduce and pass bills that criminalize physicians for medical care nationally recognized as the standard of care.”
While there are a few other options in Canyon County, where West Valley Medical Center is located, those who might have previously gone to Bonner General Health may now have to travel up to an hour away in order to give birth — which seems a lot like the kind of thing that could go very, very wrong. As much as giving birth somewhere other than a hospital may make for a particularly compelling very special episode of “Saved By The Bell,” “Punky Brewster,” “All In The Family,” “Doogie Howser,” “Night Court” or any other sitcom where people for some reason gave birth in an elevator, it’s not a very good idea in real life where serious complications can arise. In real life, you probably don’t want ALF as your obstetrician.
It’s also worth noting here that when labor and delivery units close, Neonatal Intensive Care Units (NICUs) go with them. There are only 10 NICUs in Idaho. So you know how Donald Trump and friends were just so upset about the imaginary “post-birth abortions” in which they just “make the baby comfortable” until they pass (i.e. situations in which the child has no chance of survival)? Well, that’s going to happen a lot in Idaho and other states even when the child could have been saved, because there will be no NICU to give them a better shot at survival.
These consequences were entirely obvious from the beginning. We all said this is what would happen if they criminalized the standard of care. We all said, “if you make obstetricians in your state choose between prison and letting a patient die, no one is going to want to practice there.” They knew this was going to happen. Infant and maternal mortality rates were already on the rise in the state before the ban (infant mortality by 18 percent, maternal mortality by — I wish I were exaggerating — 121 percent from 2019-2021), and this is only going to make things worse. The Idaho legislature knows this, which is likely why they dissolved the state’s maternal mortality review committee just as those statistics were released.
If Idaho’s “pro-life” contingent really, actually cared about “life,” they would not pass laws that would obviously lead to obstetricians leaving the state, to labor and delivery units and NICUs closing, to the infant and maternal mortality rates increasing. It’s not about “life,” it’s about purity. It’s about showing other anti-abortion radicals that they are willing to do anything, including putting the lives of mothers and infants at risk, in order to have the harshest abortion bans possible.
And so far, they’re doing a real great job.
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As bad as having to drive an hour to deliver your baby is, on top of top imagine having to drive an hour for prenatal care. Prenatal care involves monthly appointments until the second trimester, then every two weeks until 36 weeks, and weekly until delivery. A two hour round trip plus appointment time is going to lead to a lot of women for going prenatal care. A lot of women are going to suffer and die due to gestational hypertension and diabetes, preeclampsia, and other conditions that will go undiagnosed until it's an emergency.
Not taking credit for this, but some astute person wrote...
Plot twist: Frozen embryos are non-binary.