The Idaho Capital Sun<\/a>, reports a higher number, saying 14 rural hospitals in Idaho stopped their labor and delivery services in 2025. Sixteen rural hospitals are still offering these services, the outlet says, and account for 53% of all rural hospitals statewide. <\/p>\nErickson added that there are \u201cabout eight to 10 more hospitals\u201d he is aware of that are nearing a halt of labor and delivery services. <\/p>\n
\u201cNow, in over 50% of the counties in Idaho, you cannot deliver a baby,\u201d he said. \u201cSo there\u2019s more counties in Idaho where you can\u2019t deliver a baby in the local hospital than where you can.\u201d<\/p>\n
Politcs of the abortion argument <\/p>\n
While Erickson said his personal beliefs lean anti-abortion, he knows there are some situations beyond the control of the mother and her doctor in which an abortion is the likely best option.<\/p>\n
\u201cRight now, it\u2019s you flip a coin (in deciding) whether or not you want to take care of that or intercede, because the fact is you\u2019re worried about going to jail and losing your license,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n
Since 2022, a law has been enacted allowing family members of individuals who get an abortion to receive up to $20,000 in damages in lawsuits filed against the doctor who performed that abortion.<\/p>\n
\u201cI know that the way I practice doesn\u2019t cross the lines of this law, but there are so many holes in it that the uncle of the lady I\u2019m taking care of can come and sue me for that, and he doesn\u2019t have a clue as to what actually was going on,\u201d Pugmire said. <\/p>\n
When it comes to her profession, Pugmire says just because she can perform an abortion doesn\u2019t mean that\u2019s what she\u2019s doing.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe want doctors to be able to practice how they\u2019re trained \u2014 some people feel like that means that I was trained to do abortions all the time,\u201d Pugmire said. \u201cI do know how to do them, but I specifically came to Idaho because the culture here was that we didn\u2019t routinely do abortions if someone just didn\u2019t want a pregnancy.\u201d<\/p>\n
She said Idaho law has also affected the way she and her colleagues treat pregnancies where the baby develops ectopically or has a lethal anomaly that results in its death. <\/p>\n
She says there are many women who opt to continue these types of pregnancies, and her role as the physician is to monitor the pregnancy and ensure the mother does well. However, there are times when ending the pregnancy would be a benefit to the mother, but Idaho\u2019s law prevents that type of treatment.<\/p>\n
\u201cI could help them through that traumatic experience in their community, at the hospital they had instruments at, with their support team from their family,\u201d Pugmire said. \u201cI can\u2019t do that now.\u201d<\/p>\n
When she met with the hospital\u2019s lawyers, Pugmire said she was told to stop doing \u201cthat\u201d unless you want to go to jail.<\/p>\n
Pugmire said when she met with women who had unwanted pregnancies, there were other options presented that would help them avoid abortion. While some chose to end the pregnancy, she wasn\u2019t starting the discussion with abortion.<\/p>\n
However, she said with the laws that are now in place, \u201cwe are telling Idahoans that they can\u2019t trust their physicians.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s the problem. Abortion wasn\u2019t the problem to me. We weren\u2019t doing abortions,\u201d Pugmire said. \u201cThey had to go somewhere else anyway, but yet we would still help them with the mental health things,\u201d<\/p>\n
Meeting with lawmakers <\/p>\n
Over the past two months, Erickson said he has met with 28 legislators in east Idaho to discuss the need for something to change. <\/p>\n
Possible changes could mirror Utah\u2019s abortion law, he suggested. \u201cHealth of the mother, rape and incest \u2026 are the three exceptions that they give in Utah,\u201d Erickson said. <\/p>\n
Currently, Idaho law prevents abortions from taking place in all three of those circumstances. <\/p>\n
However, in speaking with legislators about abortion law reform, Pugmire said it baffled them to learn that she doesn\u2019t want to perform abortions and isn\u2019t being paid to promote that type of procedure. <\/p>\n
\u201cOn the other hand, they say, \u2018Well, we can\u2019t talk to you because you\u2019re biased,\u2019\u201d Pugmire said. \u201cYet they don\u2019t didn\u2019t understand that that\u2019s not how we were practicing.\u201d<\/p>\n
\t \t \t \t=htmlentities(get_the_title())?>%0D%0A%0D%0A=get_permalink()?>%0D%0A%0D%0A=htmlentities(‘For more stories like this one, be sure to visit https:\/\/www.eastidahonews.com\/ for all of the latest news, community events and more.’)?>&subject=Check%20out%20this%20story%20from%20EastIdahoNews” class=”fa-stack jDialog”> \t <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"IDAHO FALLS \u2014 The health care landscape in Idaho looks vastly different from what it was four years…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":428045,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[59],"tags":[97,252,253],"class_list":{"0":"post-428044","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-health-care","8":"tag-health","9":"tag-health-care","10":"tag-healthcare"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/428044","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=428044"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/428044\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/428045"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=428044"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=428044"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=428044"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}