Idaho hospital ends baby deliveries due to political climate and doctor shortage.

Bonner General Health in Sandpoint, Idaho, will stop providing obstetrical care, including delivering babies, in mid-May due to a decreasing number of deliveries, a loss of doctors, and a shifting legal climate in which recently enacted state laws could subject physicians to prosecution for providing abortions. Pregnant women in the area will have to travel about 45 miles to Coeur d’Alene for care, or to hospitals farther away in Idaho, Washington, and Montana. The hospital cited Idaho’s legal and political climate as partly to blame, with the state banning nearly all abortions in measures that subject physicians to prosecution for providing any abortions, even if needed to protect the health of a pregnant patient.