Jim Woodward
Former Idaho state senator Jim Woodward (photo, left) voted for all the legislative bills that made his state’s abortion ban among the strictest in the country, a Politico story begins (read it here).
In 2020, he voted for a law that threatens doctors with “fines, lawsuits, jail time and revoked medical licenses” if they perform an abortion and can’t prove a mother’s life, not her health, was at risk.
In 2022, he voted for another law that “allows family members, including those of rapists” (but not the rapists), to “sue providers for performing abortions.”
What doctor or hospital will perform any abortions what that hanging over them? For one thing, defending themselves requires disclosing patient medical records, which is prohibited by federal law. It’s a catch-22 the writers of these laws are well aware of.
But if they don’t perform the abortion, the alternative may be watching a patient you could save die. That’s not what people become health care professionals for. What would you do? Idaho’s baby doctors are leaving the state (see story here), and the panhandle where Woodward’s district is has no maternity services at all anymore.
Faced with Idaho losing its health care, Woodward is having second thoughts about what he and his fellow legislators have done. But it’s probably too late now. And Idaho politics aren’t getting less crazy. Woodward was ousted in a GOP primary by an extremist who opposes any abortion exceptions, including for rape and incest, and says being raped is “an opportunity to have a child.”
Have you noticed it’s men who are pushing extreme anti-abortion positions? This isn’t a coincidence. They don’t get raped or suffer abnormal pregnancies. Abortion rights advocates (many of them women) see the issue as really being about dominating women. Abortion opponents seem to agree, if you read between the lines of what they say. In a recent speech NFL player Harrison Butker, a vocal abortion opponent, said a woman’s place is in the home (see story here).
That’s where America was a century ago, when women were excluded from most professions, and a teacher would be fired for getting married. Conservatives want to drag America back to those backward times. If the women who lived then could talk, they’d tell you those times weren’t so great as today’s reactionaries imagine. I know, because my mother was one of those fired teachers, and she talked about it to the end of her life.
This is about inflexible people imposing their ideology and personal beliefs on others. They’re comfortable in a homogenous society, and diversity of people, races, and ideas sends them into panic mode. As the Politico article mentions, “live and let live” is not their creed.
Jim Woodward can’t change what he helped put in place. Idaho is a basket case. Very likely its doctors and nurses will continue to become refugees, because they can’t uphold their professional obligations to their patients by staying. The patients will leave, too.
Photo below: Scott Herndon, the man who beat Jim Woodward in the 2022 GOP primary, doesn’t believe in limiting family size, either his or yours
