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0:50

I

0:57

cried, which I almost never do at a podcast. So,

1:01

that's my recommendation this week. Heavyweight,

1:03

Season 3, Episode 1. It's titled Lenny. If

1:07

you don't know Heavyweight, it's reliably

1:09

one of the weirdest, funniest, most accomplished

1:11

shows out there. Jonathan

1:14

invented a way to host it, and it's a great way to get a little

1:16

bit of a kick out of it. It's a great

1:18

way to get a little bit of a kick out

1:20

of it. It's a great way to get a little bit of a kick out of it. It's

1:24

one of the weirdest, most accomplished shows out there. Jonathan

1:26

invented a way to host a podcast, and a

1:28

thing to do in a podcast that's different from anybody

1:30

else.

1:31

And you used to have to get

1:33

the show on the Spotify app, but

1:36

now it is available wherever you get your podcasts.

1:40

So, Heavyweight. Try

1:42

a bunch of them. And

1:44

now, here's our show for the week. A

1:47

quick warning. There are curse words that are un-beeped

1:50

in today's episode of the show. If you prefer

1:52

a beeped version, you can find that at

1:54

our website, thisamericanlife.org.

1:58

brother. His

2:01

brother needed somebody last minute because

2:03

the guy bailed on him. Jeff also

2:05

had somebody bail on him. He moved back

2:07

home for the summer for this girl he liked. And

2:10

it became like really apparent right

2:12

away that like that wasn't gonna work out. So

2:15

he had some time on his hands. His brother

2:17

was doing a research study on black bears. His

2:20

brother's a wildlife biologist and offered him

2:22

this job as a field tech. And

2:24

a summer working with black bears

2:26

was a dream so that wouldn't

2:28

be a dream for everybody. Why was that a dream for you? Oh I

2:32

just think bears are the coolest animals. They're

2:34

so cool. Black bears are like so

2:37

cool how fast they can like climb

2:39

a tree. Like their ears. I love like

2:41

their bears ears. I just love everything

2:43

about bears. So Jeff loves bears.

2:46

His brother Wes studies bears. Jeff

2:48

is the younger brother. Wes is the older brother. Wes's

2:51

research was a track where bears were in Bryce Canyon

2:53

National Park in Utah. Here

2:56

he is. There was a bear that had broken

2:58

into a tent, swatted a woman

3:01

while she was sleeping, really scared

3:03

her. And so the idea was

3:05

to call her some bears, track

3:07

them, see where they're going, how they're

3:09

spending their time. If they could figure that out

3:11

the park could relocate campsites away from those

3:13

areas and post signs. So

3:16

Wes and Jeff spent the summer putting collars with GPS

3:18

devices onto a bunch of wild bears. And

3:21

then in the winter they had to go back and

3:23

check on the bears. Do a quick exam,

3:25

make sure the collars weren't too tight once the bears fattened

3:28

up for winter, swap out any old collars

3:30

that needed new batteries. And

3:32

it turns out the easiest way to do that is to visit

3:34

the bears when they're hibernating. And

3:36

they're dens. And most bear dens,

3:39

my job isn't actually too difficult or scary. The

3:42

dens are small, like a cavity

3:44

in some rock or under a tree, Wes

3:46

says. And they're generally shallow

3:48

enough that I can just, I have a pole that

3:51

has a syringe on the end of it. I can just

3:53

extend that pole and sedate

3:55

the bear from outside of the den. I don't generally

3:57

even have to go inside.

3:59

Generally,

4:01

but then like you get a couple dens where

4:04

it's like You're the only thing between

4:06

the bear and the exit and that's

4:08

when it gets kind of sketchy And

4:10

that's what happened in this case. Oh,

4:12

this one was like on another level.

4:15

This one was crazy This

4:24

one happened on a wintery day the

4:26

two of them had it out to see bear number 95 There's

4:30

always signal in the GPS. I'm maybe a thousand

4:32

feet up a steep hillside to get to him in

4:34

the snow It's hard and

4:36

cold And they struggle to find

4:39

any opening at all on the rock that could be a den Because

4:42

it's just a blanket of snow everywhere there

4:44

too maybe half an hour and then Wes

4:46

is like Standing on this like

4:49

tiny little opening and then I

4:51

see like these branches right by his feet

4:53

and a lot of times bears Will like bring branches

4:55

into their den? So I'm

4:57

like Wes like I think you're standing

5:00

on top of the den He's

5:03

just like no way They clear

5:05

away the snow and it's an opening the size of a

5:07

manhole cover going into the side of a sandstone

5:09

cliff and then like we

5:12

crouched down and looked and like I Mean

5:15

you could only see like 20 feet in and

5:17

it's just black. So

5:20

like honestly this den It

5:24

would be terrifying to go in it if you like

5:27

Didn't know anything was in there and

5:29

like you know that there's a bear in there So

5:32

that just like intensifies it so

5:34

much more but it's like even if there wasn't a bear

5:36

I'd be like this is like scary Wasn't

5:39

Jeff discuss whether they're gonna go into this hole Back

5:42

bears aren't like grizzlies. They almost never attacked

5:44

people But going into this very unusual

5:46

den where the bear might feel trapped or

5:49

threatened and have no way out except through

5:51

them That's choice Jeff

5:54

does talk back to Wes way more than any normal

5:56

field tech would because he's his brother, but

5:58

Wes is the boss And he's like, we

6:01

came this far and we really do need to change

6:03

that bear's collar. And I start crawling

6:06

in, looking for the back of the den, looking

6:08

for the bear and it's just not there and this hole just

6:10

plunges into darkness. My headlamp

6:13

only goes so far and I just

6:15

keep going and immediately I realize like, shit,

6:17

this is a really, really long den.

6:20

This is much longer than anything I've ever seen

6:23

or even heard of.

6:24

How long?

6:26

This thing extends 80 feet back

6:29

and at the end of it, it's just pitch black. You

6:31

kind of, you really do have to suppress a

6:34

lot of primal stuff that's telling you this is

6:36

a place where you are not supposed to be. This

6:39

is not a place for humans. Wes

6:41

is in front, big brother, scientist, just

6:43

behind, little brother, assistant, and

6:46

they're army crawling because the tunnel is too low to

6:48

stand up in. It's pretty crammed.

6:51

You know that feeling?

6:53

Where you're in your belly, in a tunnel, edging

6:55

towards a bear? No, of course

6:58

not. You don't know that feeling. Who has done that? Fine.

7:01

You have been in this situation of moving

7:03

towards something scary or dreadful

7:05

ahead and now you have gotten yourself in

7:08

it, you can't turn back, you have to keep moving,

7:10

you just have to deal and that is what

7:12

today's show is about. We have this story and then we have

7:14

another one in the second half of the show and yes, it's

7:16

This American Life from WBEZ Chicago and Ira

7:19

Glass. Anyway, so they're edging towards this bear.

7:21

Right, the bear was gently slipping down,

7:23

right? And the small, you may

7:25

be wondering about the small, it's

7:27

like what earth? Musty.

7:30

The bear brings in a nest of pine

7:32

tree boughs and other sticks and stuff

7:34

so it does kind of smell cedar-y and nice too.

7:38

Like it's musty but it's honestly not

7:40

as bad as what you would think because

7:43

when a bear goes into a hibernation, Wes

7:45

would give you a lot more scientific name on

7:47

this but they create like

7:49

a butt plug of

7:52

like poop so that they

7:54

won't poop the entire time they're in their den.

7:57

So there's like no feces or like urine

7:59

in there. So it

8:01

honestly isn't terrible. There

8:04

may be 15, 20, 25 feet into the tunnel. And

8:07

where's his headlamp points at the far end. And

8:09

I just see these two green eyes at the very

8:11

end of his tunnel, staring back at

8:14

me. And the thing about these hibernating

8:16

bears is bears don't hibernate very

8:18

deeply. So if a bear hears

8:20

you approaching its den, it can come out of that hibernation.

8:23

And generally within five to 10 minutes, they can be

8:25

mobile. And so this bear was awake.

8:29

And they have the tepidum lucidum,

8:31

which is the thing you see in cats'

8:33

eyes or deer eyes or whatever that reflects light

8:35

back at you. And they reflect

8:38

a really kind of green glow. And

8:40

so it's just, again, the stuff of nightmares, like

8:42

you're crawling down a deep dark hole in

8:44

the mountains and there's two green

8:46

eyes shining back at you. The light

8:49

starts to catch these two eyeballs at the

8:51

very end of the den that are just

8:53

like gleaming back at us. So

8:55

at that point, I'm like terrified. And

8:59

I start kind of freaking out. I start saying

9:01

like, West, this is crazy. This is crazy.

9:04

Like, I don't know about this.

9:07

And Jeff just started saying, we shouldn't be here. We

9:09

shouldn't be here. We shouldn't be here. It was like a mantra

9:11

that he was repeating. And like, I keep like

9:13

saying that. And it was

9:15

starting to really freak me out. Like I

9:18

was trying to summon all this courage and

9:21

draw in all my experience. And then I have him

9:23

behind me telling me that we just should not be

9:25

in there. And so I turned around. And

9:27

then West just goes, Jeff,

9:30

shut up. So

9:33

then like my immediate response was like,

9:35

you're so brave. And

9:37

then he just started repeating, you're

9:39

the bravest person I've ever met. You're the bravest

9:42

person I've ever met. And that

9:44

helped actually. That made me feel a lot better. It's

9:47

funny how he needs to keep saying something to

9:49

have some place to put his fear. Yeah.

9:52

Yeah, I think for him, he needed to vocalize

9:55

that. And for me, I was really going

9:57

inward and just trying to focus

9:59

on the big. And I was looking for any cues

10:02

that bear was going to be aggressive

10:05

and at that point you'll leave What

10:08

are you watching for? They

10:11

make a really distinctive Sound

10:15

when they're really Really upset

10:17

and then they also can they make this really

10:20

interesting jaw popping noise, too It

10:23

literally like clacks its jaws. It pops

10:25

its jaws. It's kind of like a Sound

10:30

and then from there it proceeds to swatting

10:33

the ground with its paws and Then

10:35

if it is still upset It'll bluff

10:37

charge you and a bluff charge is just where

10:40

the bear comes at you and then stops short.

10:42

Are you terrified? Oh? Yeah,

10:46

oh, yeah, I was absolutely terrified I have a video

10:48

that I took when I got close to the

10:50

bear I took a quick video from my phone

10:53

and I at the very end of it. You just hear me say this

10:55

is so scary Okay,

10:59

oh, this is so fucking scary It

11:04

really was it's terrifying

11:09

All of my body a lot

11:11

of my psyche was saying you absolutely

11:14

need to get out of this den it's

11:16

this feeling of Being

11:19

a soft pink human

11:21

being in a place where we don't

11:24

belong You

11:30

Of course Wes being in the tunnel with this

11:32

bear He's a bear expert

11:35

and he's thought some about what this experience must

11:37

have been like for the bear Where these

11:39

black bears live they're their top dog There's

11:41

nothing bigger or more dangerous

11:43

than them and so they don't have stuff

11:46

that crawls into their dens and gets closer and closer

11:48

To them, so it must be a very unique

11:52

Experience for them as well like I'm obviously

11:54

a bear like what the hell is this thing doing

11:57

in here? Wait when the bear

11:59

sees you Like it knows it can kick your ass,

12:01

right? Like it can just look at you and it doesn't even, without

12:04

even thinking or doing any math in its head or something,

12:07

it just sees your size and it just knows like, well,

12:09

you're not a threat, but then

12:11

is it scared? Yeah,

12:13

you know, I think the thing that you, that we have to

12:15

realize with wild animals is that for

12:17

them, a fight means

12:19

much more than can I win or will

12:22

I lose? It's like, am

12:24

I going to be injured in this? Because

12:27

for any animal, bears included,

12:29

if they sustain a big injury in any kind

12:31

of scuffle or fight or whatever,

12:33

that could be a death sentence for them

12:36

because then they no longer have the ability to feed

12:38

or escape or even move. And

12:41

so they tend

12:43

to be very risk averse.

12:46

So Wes and Jeff keep army crawling forward

12:48

with a syringe full of sedative on the end of a seven

12:51

foot pole. And finally, Wes

12:53

gets close enough to jab it into the bear. Mission

12:56

accomplished, right? But we

12:58

jab it, the bear doesn't react

13:01

at all. Doesn't flinch and

13:03

most important, does not fall

13:05

asleep. Probably because it's gotten

13:07

so big since they last seen it, like 350

13:10

pounds, which would require way more sedative

13:12

than Wes gave it. So

13:15

the two of them head back out of the cave to

13:17

prepare another dose of sedative, which they definitely are going

13:19

to need. That job goes to Jeff, a

13:21

little brother. And it is something I was fully

13:23

capable of doing, but I think

13:25

I was still just dialed

13:29

up all the way to 11 with all my

13:31

emotions and my thoughts weren't clear. So

13:34

I was doing a terrible job. Like

13:36

your hands aren't totally steady. Yeah,

13:38

I'm just making a mess, I'm

13:41

fumbling around, and eventually

13:43

the bear makes its

13:45

way all the way through the 80 feet

13:48

of den and starts coming out. This

13:50

is not the plan. It would be very bad

13:53

for a tranqed out bear to leave its den at all. It

13:55

could easily wander off and get lost in the

13:57

snow in the middle of winter. And Wes and Jeff,

14:00

Remember, they're bear guys. They do anything they can

14:02

think of. So the bears in this research don't get hurt

14:04

by it and experience the minimum amount of discomfort

14:06

or stress. They have another field tech

14:08

with them who's been waiting outside the tunnel. And

14:11

Wes orders that guy now, keep the

14:13

bear in the den. And the guy

14:15

starts swatting at the bear with a plastic shovel

14:17

to keep it from emerging. And it just does

14:19

not care. It's not even registering that he's

14:22

there and just keeps walking

14:24

past him. Wow. So yeah.

14:27

So at that point, I ran

14:29

and the thing that I really

14:32

didn't want to have happen was the

14:34

drug take hold while this bear

14:36

was trying to get away and have it tumble

14:38

down the hillside or down a cliffside or something

14:40

like that. I just wasn't willing to let that happen.

14:43

So I ran and actually grabbed the bear

14:45

by its back legs and pulled them out

14:48

from under it. And then I straddled

14:50

the bear and pushed its head down

14:52

into the snow. In the meantime, I

14:54

had said- Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. What are you talking

14:57

about? You're able to do that because the bear is kind

14:59

of like, is the bear walking like a sort of

15:01

cartoon, you know, drunk

15:04

bear kind of thing? Like it's staggering

15:06

along?

15:07

Yeah, that's honestly exactly how it was walking.

15:09

That's a perfect representation. So

15:13

he's on top of this bear, straddling it, holding

15:15

its collar and head down in the snow. He's

15:17

actually gotten a second dose of sedative into him by then,

15:19

but the bear is still awake. And Wes

15:22

then looks over at Jeff, who was so panicked

15:24

that he has dropped the entire case of drugs. Jeff

15:26

is supposed to be preparing a third dose. And

15:29

I just yell at Jeff. I say, Jeff, come grab

15:31

this bear. I'll do the drugs. It's

15:34

kind of an unusual set of sentences to say to anybody. They

15:37

switch places. Jeff is now the one straddling

15:39

the bear, hands on its collar, and

15:41

the bear gets up and

15:44

starts to move again. And it's almost like,

15:46

like, you know that movie, The Replacements,

15:49

where like Keanu Reeves is a quarterback,

15:52

or like any of the football movies, where

15:54

like the big, like hefty lineman

15:56

catches the ball. And then they're

15:58

just like slowly. moving towards the

16:01

end zone and the whole defense jumps on

16:03

them and they're just kind of like Falling

16:05

off of them and trucking and like I'm

16:07

still going towards the goal line Yeah, it's

16:09

going in like a straight line with all

16:11

these people hanging on them. It's kind of

16:13

like that We're just like hanging on this black

16:16

bear and it's just like slowly

16:18

going in a straight line Just

16:20

holding it by the collar getting dragged along

16:23

slowing it down a little bit But that's all I can do and

16:25

this thing with this bear where none of the normal

16:27

rules apply Totally off the map like

16:30

I was like this is what I have to do But

16:32

like I can't believe I'm doing it. It

16:35

was like surreal like I just like it's

16:38

like I was in a dream

16:43

It like starts making it wait its way

16:45

to like more of a downward slope too so

16:48

now it's like I'm really hard

16:50

for me to stop it and I'm like just

16:52

kind of like on the back of it and It

16:55

walks straight into a pine tree and

16:58

like Literally like

17:00

couldn't figure out what was going on and

17:03

just like tried to keep walking forward

17:05

like into a tree Wes

17:08

remembers it more like a juniper bush But in any

17:10

case it does the job the bear stops

17:13

finally passes out on the ground They

17:15

do their business change the collar examine

17:17

the bear and then so there

17:19

doesn't get lost and confused in the snow when it wakes up

17:22

They grab its limbs and drag it 15 yards

17:25

or so back up the slope to the opening of the tunnel Which

17:28

is exactly as completely exhausting as you would imagine

17:30

it takes maybe half an hour Temperatures

17:33

driving Wes is worried that the bear

17:35

might get cold so lose a blanket on top of them

17:37

before they go Looking

17:45

back but Wes and Jeff both talked about is

17:47

the terror that they felt in that tunnel Wes

17:50

says it was a whole new level of fear. He didn't

17:52

know existed Like the kind of primal

17:54

fear a long ago humans must

17:56

have had all the time basing off with animals I

17:58

wanted to kill them and eat them

18:00

And

18:01

it's something that we've forgotten,

18:03

but I think it's something that still sits deep inside

18:06

of us that when you do

18:08

have these experiences with large animals that

18:11

it bubbles to the surface. And in a way

18:13

it was really intoxicating. I'll tell you

18:15

like that night I didn't sleep a wink because

18:17

my adrenaline was just coursing through my body.

18:21

It just made me feel, honestly,

18:23

like made me feel very alive. And

18:27

even when I think back on that, I can still remember

18:29

the feelings I had that night as I went back to

18:31

my cabin and everything, just how

18:34

bright the stars seemed and how crisp

18:37

the air felt. And

18:40

it really just reminded me how good

18:42

it is to be alive.

18:50

And the bear, the bear was fine.

18:52

The dogs I gave it probably doesn't remember the details

18:55

of what happened, Wes said. And every year

18:57

later, Wes went back to that tunnel when the bear

18:59

wasn't in it. Found the blanket inside.

19:02

The bear must've liked it a little. It

19:05

smelled like bear,

19:07

fur all over it.

19:08

And I took it back, kept it as a souvenir.

19:12

He says, it still smells spingly like

19:13

bear. After

19:25

the break, we have another story of people

19:27

thrown into a dangerous and utterly foreseeable situation

19:30

and how they handle it in this episode that we're

19:32

calling the bear at the end of the tunnel. Wes

19:35

and Jeff, by the way, have a podcast where they tell stories

19:37

of animal attacks. It's called Tooth and Claw.

19:40

If you enjoyed this story that you just heard, you

19:42

should know that by their standards, this story was not

19:44

so special. The ones on their show, way

19:46

more eventful.

19:47

More in a minute from

19:48

Chicago Bubble Radio when our program continues.

19:53

There are two sides to every story, but if you wanna

19:55

hire great talent for your business faster,

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there's just one way to do it. You need

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indeed. They streamline hiring with powerful

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slash NYT. Offer good for a limited

20:10

time. Just go to indeed.com slash

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NYT and support the show by saying you heard

20:15

about it on this podcast. Indeed.com

20:17

slash NYT. Terms and conditions

20:20

apply. Need to hire? You need Indeed.

20:24

This is American Life from Ira Glass. Today's program,

20:26

again, the bear at the end of the tunnel.

20:29

Stories of people who find themselves trapped in some dangerous

20:31

situation and now they just have to deal. We

20:34

have arrived at Act 2 of our show. Act 2,

20:37

the devil's in the details and there are so many

20:39

details. So a few

20:41

months ago we brought you this story from one of our

20:43

producers, Miki Meek, about an OBGYN

20:45

in rural Idaho who was deciding

20:48

whether or not to leave the state after Roe vs.

20:50

Wade was overturned and abortion was outlawed

20:52

there.

20:53

I don't want to leave here. I

20:55

mean, I

20:57

don't want to leave but I don't

21:00

know if I can stay. This

21:02

OBGYN, Amelia Huntsberger,

21:05

was facing in Idaho a set of abortion laws that

21:07

kicked in after Roe was overturned that are some of the most

21:09

restrictive in the country.

21:11

And

21:12

I think when most of us think of these laws we think

21:14

of their effect on abortion clinics

21:16

and abortion care providers. That wasn't

21:19

this story. Amelia was a general OBGYN

21:21

at a hospital, in other words doing pap smears,

21:24

birth control, delivering babies, and

21:26

her hospital did not terminate pregnancies unless

21:29

it was a medical complication, which by

21:31

the way is like most hospitals in the United States.

21:34

But when Roe was overturned

21:36

and these new laws in Idaho took effect, they

21:38

defined abortion in the broadest possible terms.

21:42

There was effectively a complete ban. Even

21:44

pregnancies that weren't going to be viable could

21:46

not be terminated. And any

21:48

doctor who performed an abortion, breaking those rules,

21:51

faced severe consequences. They could

21:53

lose their medical license, they go to prison for

21:55

two to five years, and they could get

21:58

sued.

22:01

If a rape resulted in a pregnancy and

22:03

the victim decided to get an abortion, the

22:06

rapist's family could sue the doctor

22:08

for performing the abortion. And

22:11

the problem for Amelia, Ms. OBGYN,

22:14

said she ran into all kinds of situations where, in

22:16

the course of administering normal health care

22:18

for her patients, she could run afoul

22:20

of the law. For instance, if

22:23

a patient showed up at her hospital miscarrying and bleeding

22:25

uncontrollably, in the past, Amelia

22:28

could terminate the pregnancy to stop the bleeding.

22:31

But

22:31

now,

22:32

she could be charged with a felony if she did that. If

22:34

she did anything to terminate a pregnancy if

22:36

it still had a, quote, fetal heartbeat,

22:39

that's a phrase in the law. Though in the early

22:41

stages, it's not a heartbeat, it's just electrical

22:43

activity and some tissue that could eventually

22:46

become a heart. So

22:48

now, when Amelia faced pregnancies

22:50

with serious complications, situations

22:52

where the longer she waited to act, the more danger the patient

22:54

was in, she could no longer just

22:57

think about what was best for the patient who was in front

22:59

of her. You

22:59

know, when you do surgery like that, or somebody's

23:02

having ongoing active bleeding, that's

23:04

already high stress. And

23:07

that's sort of high stress, like I trained for

23:09

that. I know what to do with that. I

23:11

can handle that. Then

23:13

you add in this other weird layer

23:15

of, like, is her

23:18

brother going to not understand

23:20

that this was a not viable pregnancy

23:23

and that her life was at risk? And like,

23:25

what about her mom? What about her

23:27

partner? What about her sister?

23:29

Like, do these people understand

23:32

how serious this condition is?

23:35

Or do they only understand that I

23:38

removed a pregnancy that had a heartbeat?

23:41

I don't know. How am I supposed to know?

23:43

So, she worried about getting sued. She

23:45

worried about getting prosecuted. This came up

23:48

all the time. At

23:54

the end of our story, back in March, Camille

23:56

was still hanging on at Idaho. Still deciding.

23:58

So

24:00

much has happened. Just a few weeks

24:03

after we aired that story, Amelia decided

24:05

she was going to move away because of Idaho's

24:07

abortion laws. She was one of the first OBGYNs in the state

24:10

to announce she was going. About

24:13

a week after that, something that she feared

24:15

might happen someday happened a lot quicker than she'd

24:17

imagined. The hospital where she practiced

24:20

biogenetic health announced that it was shutting down its

24:22

entire labor and delivery department. The

24:26

hospital cited the new laws as one reason. They

24:28

said recruiting her doctors would be quote,

24:31

extremely difficult. Finances

24:33

was the other reason. Since

24:35

then, all three of the other

24:37

OBGYNs who shared a practice with Amelia

24:40

have left the state. What

24:42

Amelia dreaded most in moving away was what

24:45

was going to happen to her patients? How would all

24:47

this affect everyone in Idaho trying to have a baby? We

24:51

thought about that for today's show because

24:53

what would happen to them? This was, in

24:55

a sense, the bear in the tunnel. The difficulties and

24:58

possible danger that all

25:00

those patients face because of the new laws.

25:04

And what has unfolded since has been pretty dramatic. Our producer

25:06

Miki Meek went back to talk to patients and

25:09

to the lawmakers who put them into

25:11

the situation that they're in in the state. Here's

25:14

Miki.

25:16

I talked to half a dozen pregnant women who'd been planning to deliver at Bonner General

25:20

and suddenly found themselves contorting their lives around

25:22

logistical problems they had never imagined facing for

25:25

something as everyday as trying to have

25:27

a baby in the state of Idaho. Brooke

25:31

McCumber is 25 years old and was days away from giving birth when I

25:33

reached her.

25:34

Amelia had been her doctor, and

25:36

Brooke's plan had been to do her prenatal appointments

25:38

at Bonner General and

25:41

deliver there, too. But now the closest

25:43

Idaho hospital with a labor and delivery

25:45

department was almost two hours away in a small city

25:48

called Coeur d'Alene. She had to take her

25:50

three little kids with her in the car on

25:53

a four-hour round trip for every

25:55

prenatal appointment.

25:59

four hours for a 15 minute check-in.

26:02

The days that we would have

26:03

to go out to Coeur d'Alene, it was

26:06

like from 9.30 to 6 o'clock at night. I

26:09

would have my sister, she lives in Spokane,

26:12

so she's about 35 minutes from Coeur d'Alene,

26:15

but she would hang out with the kids. So I could go

26:17

to my appointment and then we would

26:19

have to like go out for lunch

26:21

or do a picnic and then go to

26:24

a park because I'm like they can't just sit in the car for

26:26

four hours back to back.

26:28

The distance to the hospital also worried her. She

26:31

was freaked out about not getting to the hospital in time

26:33

and giving birth on the side of the road. Her

26:35

labors have always been pretty fast. Would

26:37

she have time to make it to the hospital? When

26:40

Brooke got three weeks away from her due date, she

26:43

couldn't take being on high alert all the time. So

26:46

she moved in with her mom who lived two hours

26:48

away, close to

26:49

Brooke's new hospital.

26:51

Brooke took the kids with her. Her husband couldn't

26:53

join them because of work and her mom was

26:55

working every day. So Brooke was caring

26:57

for three little kids basically on her own

26:59

at eight months pregnant. It

27:01

was hard to leave her husband, but

27:04

splitting up their family temporarily was the

27:06

only solution they could come up with.

27:08

Me and my husband have never really been apart before

27:10

and so like being in a bed alone

27:12

has been strange and then our

27:14

two boys, they've had some trouble

27:17

sleeping so they'll wake up in the middle of the night. So

27:19

then both the boys will crawl into bed with me and

27:22

then I wind up like on the couch because I'm like

27:24

I need to try to at least get one more hour of

27:27

rest.

27:28

Bonner General had been the only labor and delivery

27:30

unit in its region of Northern Idaho. When

27:33

it shut down, it became a statistic and

27:35

a whole separate long-standing crisis. The

27:38

closure of labor and delivery surfaces and

27:40

rural hospitals all over the country.

27:43

Nearly half of rural community hospitals

27:45

no longer offer obstetrics care.

27:48

The chaos created by Bonner General's closure

27:51

for the women I spoke with involved the most basic

27:53

important stuff,

27:55

childcare. Money.

27:58

Some women told me they would lose a day's worth.

27:59

of pay every time they had to drive to an appointment.

28:03

They talked about having to budget hundreds or even

28:05

thousands of extra dollars for travel

28:07

or housing in a place closer to a labor and delivery

28:09

department, or switching to a midwife

28:11

not covered by insurance, or if they went

28:13

to another state to get care. Insurance

28:16

might not cover that either. I

28:19

talked to one woman who told me she bought helicopter

28:21

insurance for a medical evacuation flight

28:23

in case she started hemorrhaging or had some other kind

28:26

of emergency complication. Turns

28:28

out it's cheaper than you'd think. And

28:31

she wasn't the only one.

28:33

Helicopter insurance for normal

28:36

pregnancies.

28:37

This woman's name is Jessie Grossman. She's 32

28:40

years old, and this was her first kid. And

28:43

in Idaho, she worried the abortion laws

28:45

tied doctors' hands in too many cases.

28:48

So I decided

28:50

what I put in my birth plan was that if

28:52

we do have to transfer to the hospital, I want to be taken

28:54

in Washington.

28:56

I can be less worried

28:59

about

29:00

dying, basically. But

29:03

then, of course, I'm just spiraling about, well,

29:05

what if a worst-case scenario happens, and

29:07

what if I have a dentist? Is the helicopter

29:09

going to be able to get us to Spokane in time, and

29:12

just this, am I going to die? Is my

29:14

baby going to die? Like, here. There's

29:16

no guarantees. For

29:22

anyone, pregnant

29:23

person, doctor. Anyone

29:25

who might want to look at the maternal mortality statistics

29:27

in Idaho since the new laws passed. The

29:30

state used to have a committee that

29:31

tracked maternal deaths and their causes,

29:33

but it doesn't anymore. The

29:35

legislature decided not to renew it in its

29:37

last session. Idaho

29:40

is now the only state in the country without

29:42

a committee like this. So

29:50

that's the situation for these women who just needed

29:53

general OBGYN care during their pregnancies.

29:56

But then there are the high-risk

29:57

patients, which includes,

29:59

by the way, anyone who's expecting twins,

30:02

anyone with high blood pressure or diabetes,

30:04

anyone over 35, and anyone

30:06

whose pregnancies include rare complications.

30:10

These people are in a much more dire situation

30:12

in Idaho now because they may need what's

30:14

called a maternal fetal medicine doctor. These

30:17

are highly skilled OBGYNs, specialists

30:20

at keeping both the fetus and the patient alive

30:22

and healthy

30:23

through these pregnancies,

30:24

and these doctors have been leaving the state. Kayla

30:28

Smith had a maternal fetal medicine doctor. Her

30:30

first pregnancy had complications, but

30:32

things were going smoothly with this one.

30:34

It was a boy.

30:36

She and her husband had picked out a name. And

30:39

then when she was 19 weeks, she went in

30:41

for her anatomy scan.

30:43

And I just remember this

30:46

on a graph, like I know they can't say anything,

30:49

but she just like kept going over his

30:51

heart like quite a bit. And

30:53

so of course I'm like talking myself

30:55

down like it's fine, like you know

30:58

it's just different this time, like each person

31:00

has a different way of doing things. And

31:03

then it was just really quiet

31:05

and then she left. And so

31:08

Dr. Cooper

31:08

walked into the

31:11

room. Dr. Kylie Cooper, her

31:13

maternal fetal medicine specialist. I

31:16

just remember she had

31:18

a

31:19

diagram and she,

31:22

I just remember her being like I've never

31:24

seen a heart defect this severe

31:27

before. Like they couldn't really see

31:29

the babies aorta at all. Like his,

31:31

I guess aortic

31:33

arch wasn't really formed.

31:36

The only thing Kayla wanted to know was could Brooke

31:38

survive past birth? She

31:40

and her husband had already decided they could care

31:43

for a child with special needs. So Dr.

31:45

Cooper referred her to a pediatric cardiologist,

31:48

but he told her no. Brooks's

31:50

chances of survival were very unlikely.

31:52

He called some of the best pediatric

31:55

hospitals in the country and none of them could

31:57

offer her a surgical option to fix his heart. She

32:00

remembers sitting in an ultra-found room with her doctor.

32:03

She's like, if you decide to

32:05

continue this pregnancy, like, I'm here for

32:07

you and we will figure out what

32:09

that means and where we need to go from

32:11

here. She's like, but if you do decide

32:14

that you did not want to continue this pregnancy, she's

32:16

like, I'm just really sorry. There's

32:18

the same I personally can do for

32:21

you.

32:22

And you understood at that point, like, this is because

32:24

of the laws.

32:25

Yeah. Yeah. I

32:27

mean, her hands were tied. I knew

32:29

she was protecting herself, but also,

32:32

like, I would never ask her to be

32:34

in that position. Yeah. We

32:36

just all kind of looked at each other like,

32:38

what the hell do we do now?

32:41

Most patients like Kayla,

32:43

whose pregnancies have what are called lethal

32:45

and life-limiting fetal anomalies, choose

32:48

termination because continuing their

32:50

pregnancies will result in miscarriage, stillbirth,

32:53

or death shortly after delivery. But

32:56

Kayla's doctor could not offer her a termination.

32:59

Just a week or so

33:00

before this, terminating a pregnancy

33:03

like Brooks would not have been considered

33:05

an illegal abortion in Idaho. But

33:07

now under Idaho's new laws, it was.

33:11

So Kayla started asking her doctor about what

33:13

if she did continue her pregnancy and delivered Brooks.

33:16

What would it be like for him? Would

33:19

he feel any pain during the birth? Would

33:21

he suffer from air hunger? Feel

33:23

breathlessness as he gasped for air?

33:26

But of course, her doctor couldn't guarantee

33:28

that he wouldn't feel anything, even with palliative

33:31

care and morphine. So then it just also

33:33

felt like there was

33:35

only one option and it wasn't one that we

33:37

wanted to make, but like, I

33:40

don't want my son to suffer.

33:42

I'm not going to put myself through that and also, like,

33:45

risk my own life because Dr. Cooper

33:48

kept reiterating to me, she's like, you

33:50

have a 40% chance of getting pre-eclampsia again.

33:53

Pre-eclampsia is one of the leading causes

33:55

of maternal mortality. It usually

33:57

involves a surge in blood pressure that can seriously

34:00

harm or kill a pregnant patient. It's

34:02

unpredictable and hard to know when it'll happen

34:05

and how severe it will be. Which

34:07

brings us to the main thing doctors find

34:09

so frustrating about Idaho's new abortion laws.

34:13

There's language in the law that says they can't terminate

34:15

a pregnancy unless it's quote, to

34:18

prevent the death of the pregnant woman. Dr.

34:21

Cooper said she doesn't know what that means. Does

34:24

it mean she'd have to wait for Kayla to be near a death

34:26

store from preeclampsia before

34:27

she could intervene?

34:30

Her whole training, all doctors' training,

34:32

is to stop problems before

34:34

death ever becomes imminent. The

34:36

only other situation where Dr. Cooper could

34:38

terminate a pregnancy is if the fetal heartbeat

34:41

stopped, if the fetus was dead. Kayla

34:45

described her options in Idaho as a

34:47

quote, shit buffet.

34:49

So do I risk

34:52

going to term knowing that I'm not

34:54

even going to have a son to take home and

34:56

risk my life and not be there

34:59

for my daughter? I

35:01

mean, I want to make it very clear that

35:04

I was at that point 20 weeks

35:06

pregnant. Like I could feel like a move

35:08

that's very active. And

35:12

like what that does to

35:14

someone's mental health,

35:18

it's just devastating because I felt

35:19

I like to felt trapped. There

35:27

are some really dark thoughts that I never

35:30

thought I would have thought.

35:32

Things like, you know,

35:34

is there a chance that his heart will stop?

35:37

Because I knew where I'm currently

35:40

at in Idaho, that would

35:42

be a reason for them to help

35:43

me.

35:46

I heard this from other pregnant women in Idaho

35:48

with lethal fetal anomalies. They

35:50

found themselves wishing for the heartbeats to stop. Knowing

35:54

that Brooks could suffer if he made it to term, Kayla

35:57

decided to leave the state in order to end

35:59

her pregnancy. She got an appointment

36:01

at a hospital in Seattle. Because

36:03

she was so far along, 21 weeks,

36:06

second trimester, and because it wasn't

36:08

clear if her insurance was going to cover it, she

36:10

had to pay almost $15,000 up front. She and her husband took out

36:15

a loan and then drove seven and a half hours

36:17

with her two-year-old daughter. Kayla

36:20

had a choice of how to end her pregnancy

36:23

with a surgical procedure

36:25

or by inducing labor early. Kayla

36:28

knew she wanted to induce. She

36:31

delivered Brooks after 12 hours of labor. He

36:34

was stillborn. She

36:36

says there was this weird, eerie silence in the delivery

36:38

room and then everyone left so

36:40

she and her husband could hold Brooks.

36:43

There were things that like came up after that

36:45

were kind of

36:47

like someone just you know people saying congratulations

36:50

like just walking in the room. Because

36:52

they didn't know.

36:53

Right.

36:56

Brooks was cremated. Two weeks

36:58

later Kayla made the seven and a half hour

37:00

drive back to Seattle to pick up his ashes.

37:03

My parents would have without a doubt driven

37:05

up to Seattle to get him if I needed

37:07

them to and you know brought him to

37:09

us when they were able to come over here.

37:12

But I just remember like talking

37:14

with my husband and being like I it

37:18

doesn't make me feel good like I feel like I just

37:20

need to go and he was like then you just need

37:22

to go. And so I drove

37:25

I drove over to Seattle with my daughter. It was

37:28

one of those things that I was like I just need to be

37:31

in charge of this so I know what's

37:33

happening.

37:35

Kayla was the first case like this that

37:38

her doctor Dr. Cooper handled

37:40

after Idaho's abortion laws changed. Her

37:43

first case where she couldn't do anything to help.

37:46

Then there were more patients like Kayla she couldn't

37:48

help

37:49

and in April of this

37:50

year she was the first maternal fetal

37:52

medicine doctor to leave Idaho

37:54

because of its abortion laws. There

37:57

was already a shortage of these specialists at Idaho

37:59

before the laws went into effect, only

38:02

nine in the entire state. Now

38:04

there are just five, and one of those

38:07

will retire before the end of the year.

38:14

I fear that every

38:16

pregnant woman I talked to in Idaho had, that

38:19

they'd be left totally on their own in a medical emergency.

38:22

It happened to Becca, the last patient

38:25

Dr. Cooper had to tell. I'm sorry,

38:27

I can't help you, before she

38:29

moved out of Idaho.

38:31

Becca is 31.

38:33

She lives in the Boise area and used to oversee

38:35

a fitness club. She went to college

38:37

on a pole vaulting scholarship.

38:39

When she was about 16 weeks pregnant, she

38:42

learned that her fetus had a genetic anomaly. Multiple

38:45

organs were developing abnormally, including

38:47

its heart and kidneys. If

38:50

she continued the pregnancy, she'd likely

38:52

miscarry and was at risk for preeclampsia

38:54

or severe hemorrhaging. You

38:56

know, when you see in movies, when people get

38:58

like, you know, fatal

39:00

diagnosis and they just kind of go numb and

39:03

all you hear is a blabbering doctor in

39:05

the background. And I don't

39:07

actually remember a whole lot of that conversation.

39:10

I just remember sitting there and trying

39:12

not to ball my eyes out because

39:14

we'd wanted this one. We wanted

39:16

to grow our family. We tried for almost

39:18

a whole year for this one. We

39:21

told people, we're like, yeah, we're pregnant. It's

39:23

going to be, you know, we think it's going

39:25

to be a little girl or something, you know.

39:28

She decided to make the same choice Kayla made.

39:31

Leave the state.

39:32

Becca drove to Portland, Oregon to terminate her

39:34

pregnancy at a clinic. But that's

39:37

not what she and her husband told their family and friends. We

39:40

were not comfortable

39:41

being outright and telling them exactly why

39:43

we were going to Portland. So we told family

39:45

and friends that we were going for genetic testing.

39:48

Yeah. Because it is so controversial

39:50

right now in our state and we

39:52

didn't want to risk

39:54

losing good relationships

39:57

if they came down to it.

39:59

Jessica's story is different from Kayla's because

40:02

she wasn't able to get the full procedure.

40:05

The night before her appointment for a surgical termination,

40:08

she started miscarrying. It

40:10

was around midnight. She was at a hotel with

40:12

her husband and two-year-old daughter who were sleeping.

40:15

And I was just laying in bed and I started

40:17

counting

40:18

and counting and contractions

40:21

were happening every 30 seconds. So

40:25

the only thing that I kept thinking to myself was

40:27

like, oh no, this is, it's

40:29

happening. And so the

40:32

only thing I could think of was to lay

40:34

on my side, to breathe through it and relax

40:37

and just think to myself like, I

40:39

have to keep this thing in. I've got less

40:42

than eight hours. Gotta keep it in.

40:44

Gotta keep it in.

40:46

The clinic didn't open until the morning. Sebeca

40:49

woke her husband, who phoned the clinic's on-call

40:51

doctor. Becca says the doctor

40:53

told him she'd be fine. She was just cramping.

40:57

Her contractions continued to get more intense,

40:59

surging and then backing off. Her

41:02

husband kept going out to the hotel hallway to call the

41:04

doctor again. They thought about getting

41:06

an ambulance, but knew their insurance wouldn't cover

41:08

it. Becca says she forced herself

41:11

to not make a sound, no crying

41:13

or groaning. Her daughter was sleeping

41:15

in a pack and playing near her. And she didn't

41:17

want to wake her up and scare her.

41:19

And what happens next gets graphic.

41:23

And

41:23

then right around four

41:26

o'clock is when all

41:28

of a sudden it was just

41:31

a consistent, intense,

41:33

just like curdling.

41:36

Like you want to scream and grit your

41:38

teeth contraction. And

41:40

it lasted what seemed like forever. And

41:43

then the pressure was completely gone.

41:46

And then all of a sudden I started leaking

41:48

amniotic fluid everywhere. So

41:51

I ran to the toilet and

41:54

all of a sudden, you know, my body once

41:56

again had one another, one of those contractions

41:59

and just. squeezing

42:01

like you're gonna squeeze all your organs out

42:03

of you and

42:05

out came the baby and

42:08

I was down at the toilet bowl and there I

42:10

was and

42:14

I

42:15

just kind of sat there and just stared at it.

42:22

Becca got into the hotel shower and

42:24

again says she didn't make a sound even

42:27

when her husband was trying to get her uterus to contract

42:29

so she'd stop bleeding which meant needing

42:32

his fist into her lower abdomen the

42:34

way the doctor

42:34

instructed him over the phone.

42:36

She says it was

42:37

incredibly painful. And

42:38

so laying in the shower and

42:41

it's just streams of blood going into the

42:43

drain and the whole time you're just

42:45

like why is this happening?

42:47

This should not be happening. If

42:50

Becca had been able to get a termination in Idaho

42:53

it probably wouldn't have. Her

42:55

doctor Kylie Cooper could have done the procedure

42:57

as soon as she decided. Becca would

42:59

have been in and out in a day

43:01

not in a hotel room

43:02

far from home.

43:06

In the morning when the clinic opened up a

43:09

couple of employees showed up to collect the fetus.

43:12

Becca then hobbled over to the clinic for an exam. It

43:15

was next to her hotel and she had to walk past

43:17

the line of anti-abortion

43:18

protesters.

43:20

Her husband had to stay behind to

43:21

watch their daughter.

43:23

When she came back they drove home to Idaho

43:26

seven hours. They sat silently

43:28

almost the whole way.

43:32

Before talking to Kayla and Becca one part

43:34

of the post-row experience I'd never heard about

43:37

was that people who had to travel out of state to terminate

43:39

safely had all these complications

43:41

figuring out what to do with the remains because

43:44

of rules about traveling across state lines

43:46

with human remains. Becca

43:48

had wanted to donate the body for medical research

43:51

to give her pregnancy loss more meaning but

43:54

for logistical reasons at the clinic she

43:56

didn't get that option. Becca

43:58

and her husband decided to cremate. But

44:00

they had no idea when the clinic would send the remains.

44:03

A couple weeks later, we're home and

44:06

a postal worker comes up to our door and was

44:08

like, hey, I'm here, you need to sign for a package.

44:10

And I was like, oh, okay, there's

44:12

this white box that

44:15

says remains labeled

44:17

on every single side

44:19

of the box.

44:21

For some reason, the box was addressed to baby

44:23

and

44:24

not the parents.

44:25

And the postal worker doesn't actually realize

44:28

it until I was signing for it. And she

44:30

saw the name on the top and her

44:32

face just fell.

44:34

And she was like, okay, bye. And immediately

44:36

just laughing. I was just like, oh, so

44:39

I just grabbed the box and

44:40

shut the door and just sat down.

44:45

As a terrible coda to a terrible

44:46

experience,

44:48

back home, Becca worried that people who'd helped them

44:50

go out of state might get in trouble if she talked

44:52

about it.

44:53

It wasn't clear who a prosecutor might go after.

44:56

So in the earliest, hardest days, she

44:59

had a secret instead of just a loss. I

45:02

didn't feel like I could openly talk about it. And

45:04

so a lot of the grieving process, at

45:07

least for

45:07

me, is being able to

45:09

talk about it, write about it,

45:11

like, you know, even

45:14

just sympathize or empathize with other

45:17

people who've gone through similar situations. You

45:19

know, people, they just don't, it made it

45:21

a muted and

45:23

quiet,

45:24

very lonely grieving

45:27

process.

45:35

Becca and Kayla met recently. They're

45:37

part of a group of people with other patients and

45:39

doctors who are trying to sue the state,

45:42

hoping to expand the exceptions in the abortion laws

45:44

to include lethal fetal anomalies

45:47

like the ones they had in their pregnancies. And

45:49

most important, they want the law to allow

45:52

doctors to provide abortions to preserve

45:54

a person's health, not just to prevent

45:56

their death, which is the language in the law

45:58

right now. Their case was filed

46:00

by the Center for Reproductive Rights, who

46:03

filed similar legal actions in other

46:05

states with restricted laws. They

46:07

represented the abortion clinic in the Supreme

46:09

Court case that overturned Roe. I

46:13

contacted the two Idaho lawmakers in the

46:15

House and Senate who sponsored the law that

46:17

criminalizes abortion. I

46:19

wanted to find out how they think it's working. Were

46:22

they hearing about the kinds of experiences I was?

46:24

Did they know about the doctors leaving the state?

46:27

Do they think they need to make any changes?

46:30

One of the law sponsors declined an interview,

46:33

and the other didn't respond to multiple requests. So

46:35

I reached out to Republican lawmakers who voted

46:37

for the law back in 2020 before

46:40

Roe fell. Senator

46:42

Jim Guthrie represents a district in Southern

46:44

Idaho and identifies as pro-life.

46:47

I was surprised he walked into the interview with

46:49

a notebook with stats about the number of doctors

46:52

who left the state

46:52

and started citing them. So

46:55

far, it's at least 19 doctors.

46:58

I'm pro-life, but I think there's got to be some

47:00

consideration for the docs as

47:03

they practice that they're not gonna find themselves

47:05

in court. The

47:07

second is the health of the mom. Because when

47:09

you talk about pro-life, the life

47:12

of a mother is, if you're

47:14

trying to protect that, that's

47:16

pro-life too, to me.

47:18

When you first voted for the abortion

47:21

laws, did you think that Roe would actually fall?

47:24

Or did it feel more like a symbolic act

47:26

at that time?

47:27

That's a good question. I think

47:29

to answer that honestly, probably

47:32

didn't think it would happen. Because

47:36

what had gone on for what, 50 years? Something

47:38

like that.

47:39

He's the chair of a committee in the Senate that abortion

47:41

bills go through before they go to the rest

47:43

of the legislature for a vote.

47:45

He says the language in the abortion ban was

47:48

always more aggressive than his own personal beliefs.

47:51

At that time when you voted for them, were you looking that

47:53

closely at the language of the laws?

47:56

You know, maybe there was some things

47:58

overlooked

47:59

consequences would be because they weren't

48:02

truly consequences yet. In

48:04

your subconscious, you're thinking it's not

48:06

going to be overturned. So this is one way you can

48:09

make a statement. You kind

48:11

of get into that deal where if

48:14

you're pro-life, even though the

48:16

bill has some things that are problematic,

48:19

you know, you're going to come down on the side of, of

48:21

erring on the side of protecting the

48:24

unborn.

48:25

Like the other lawmakers I

48:26

talked to,

48:27

he says he believed the intent of the laws when

48:29

he voted for them was to shut down abortions

48:32

happening in clinics in the state. Not

48:34

to help shut down a rural labor and delivery unit

48:37

or force patients to travel out of state because

48:39

of severe field abnormalities. Those

48:41

were consequences he didn't foresee.

48:44

Now seeing how things have played

48:45

out,

48:46

do you regret voting for those laws or would you have done

48:49

something different if you could go back in time? In

48:51

the context of being pro-life and

48:53

recognizing the importance of the unborn,

48:56

I feel like that vote

48:58

at that time with what was

49:00

in place as far as trying

49:02

to push back against an embedded law,

49:04

I think that was

49:07

an appropriate vote at the time, even though once

49:09

the Roe versus Wade was overturned is when the

49:12

reality I think sunk in for all of us.

49:15

I talked to three Republican legislators

49:18

and they were all in the same situation, trying

49:20

to grapple with the consequences of what had

49:22

just been theoretical policy when they first voted

49:25

for them. But now with real law, affecting

49:27

real situations in people's lives. Where

49:31

Republican lawmakers used to be pretty much on

49:33

the same side. Now they have different

49:35

ideas about how to apply pro-life to

49:37

Idaho's new laws. The

49:40

next lawmaker I talked to was Representative

49:42

Brent Crane. For nearly 20

49:44

years, he's represented a district outside of

49:46

Boise and makes his living running a fire

49:48

alarm and security business. He

49:50

believes in life at conception and says he's

49:52

proudly sponsored or co-sponsored

49:54

more than a dozen pieces of anti-abortion

49:56

legislation.

49:58

He and Senator Guthrie are on the

49:59

same page as far as seeing the need

50:02

to broaden exceptions in the abortion laws.

50:04

But they also have to work alongside lawmakers

50:06

who think there shouldn't be any exceptions, for

50:09

instance, for rape and incest victims. Representative

50:12

Crane describes them as still stuck in what

50:14

he calls a pre-Roe mindset,

50:17

where everything is still black and white. He

50:19

says he used to view abortion that way too, until

50:22

Roe finally fell.

50:24

I remember sitting by the fireplace with my wife.

50:26

That's usually where we sit and download in the evening

50:28

or early morning. And

50:30

I said, I've got to get my head

50:32

around this issue, because we

50:34

are not prepared to deal with this as a state. What

50:37

did you mean by that? A

50:39

post-Roe environment is totally

50:42

different. In pre-Roe,

50:45

all legislation was crafted to try to set questions

50:47

up before the court. Well,

50:48

now you're in a post-Roe environment where you have to govern.

50:51

That means you have to have legislation that

50:54

is going to work. And

50:57

for a pro-life lawmaker, most pro-life

51:00

lawmakers will take a very conservative

51:03

and very rigid stance on the issue of life.

51:06

Like, no, I'm

51:09

not going to give any ground at all for any

51:11

more exemptions. That's it.

51:12

Whatever. For me personally,

51:14

I think that there are some instances where the

51:16

families need to make those decisions.

51:19

Again, this is a place where

51:21

lawmakers, who used to all be on the same

51:23

side of abortion, are now in conflict.

51:27

And there was a draft of a bill in the last

51:29

legislative session that got to the main

51:31

problem with the current law, the way OBGYNs

51:34

see it. The bill would

51:36

have allowed abortions for some serious health

51:38

complications before they became

51:40

life-standing. In other words,

51:43

letting doctors make decisions based on the

51:45

health of the pregnant person, not just their

51:47

potential death. Representative

51:50

Crane chairs the House Committee that abortion legislation

51:52

goes through, and

51:53

he scheduled a hearing for the bill that he had to cancel

51:56

at the last minute because he didn't have the

51:58

votes to get it out of committee. For

52:00

some of his members, considering the health of the pregnant

52:02

person, opened a can of worms.

52:05

Behind closed doors, that was part of the debate. And

52:07

then if we're opening health of the mother, where does that

52:09

stop? Is it mental health? Is

52:11

it just tied to physical health? Is

52:13

it financial health? What is,

52:16

how are you defining health the mother?

52:19

Representative Julianne Young is a Republican

52:21

from Southeastern Idaho. She's vice

52:23

chair of that committee and opposed that new language

52:25

about health complications.

52:27

What I don't want to do is put language

52:29

in that's so vague that it

52:31

has the effect of opening

52:34

the door to abortion in situations

52:36

where you could

52:37

protect both lives. And so

52:40

if we're talking about high blood pressure,

52:42

if we're talking about conditions that are common to pregnancy,

52:46

then we don't want that lumped into anything

52:48

that could be a life-threatening condition for the mother.

52:50

Because the reality is that as women, we

52:53

put our lives on the line by choosing to

52:55

have children. There are always risks

52:57

with every pregnancy and you can never eliminate

53:00

every risk. What is your, yeah,

53:02

what's your medical knowledge

53:03

of pregnancy? Oh,

53:05

well, I'm not going to claim to be an OBGYN,

53:08

but I've learned a lot over the years.

53:11

And,

53:13

you know,

53:14

I guess I speak to the issue

53:16

not as a medical professional, but as a

53:18

mother.

53:19

That's really where my

53:21

expertise is.

53:22

She has 10 children. She switches

53:24

off bringing her youngest two to the Capitol with her

53:27

and they sit down on committee meetings and hearings. Also,

53:30

random fact. Turns out my uncle

53:33

was her orthodontist when she was a kid. Representative

53:36

Young is wary of letting doctors consider

53:39

the health of the pregnant person, of giving

53:41

doctors in Idaho hospitals the kind of control

53:43

they had before Roe fell. For

53:46

Representative Young, the sweep of the new laws

53:48

is not some

53:49

overreach.

53:50

It is the point.

53:51

The concern, I think, with the health exception

53:54

is that we have some in the medical community

53:56

who have practiced in an environment for a lot

53:58

of years with the life of the child was

54:01

not valued equally. Are you talking about

54:03

in Idaho hospitals specifically or

54:06

like? Around the country, you know, because

54:08

that was the way it was. It

54:11

was a fetus, it was a clump of cells. And

54:13

there wasn't the protection in the courts for

54:16

the life of the child.

54:18

Unlike Senator Guthrie, who is worried about

54:20

doctors leaving Idaho, Representative

54:22

Young thinks that some Idaho OBGYNs

54:25

are exaggerating their fears about prosecution

54:27

under the law. She says others are

54:29

scaring themselves by overthinking the

54:31

phrase to prevent death. She

54:34

points to language in the law that says they can use

54:36

their, quote, good faith medical judgment.

54:39

Representative Crane, who talked about the pre-row

54:42

and post-row mindsets of Republicans, also

54:44

agrees with her on this.

54:46

On this topic, he doesn't see as much gray.

54:49

If you're not performing elective abortions, you have nothing

54:51

to worry about. Just like if you're not going over the speed

54:54

limit, you don't have to worry about a cop pulling you over for

54:56

speeding.

54:57

Elective abortions is a phrase anti-abortion

55:00

lawmakers and activists use. But

55:02

it's not a medical distinction. In

55:05

medicine, any termination of a pregnancy

55:07

for any reason is an abortion.

55:10

Whether it's to prevent death or to help rape and

55:12

incest

55:12

victims, or just not wanting to be

55:14

pregnant, they're

55:15

all just called

55:16

abortions.

55:18

Disconnects like this in terminology are

55:20

another frustration doctors in Idaho have

55:22

about the new laws.

55:24

OBGYNs who have left and

55:25

ones that are trying to figure out if they can stay,

55:28

but aren't sure if they can stay, they're like, the law is still

55:30

vague to

55:30

me. What's the vagueness in the law? The

55:33

vagueness for them, there's an exception for life of the pregnant patient.

55:36

But what does that need to be? How does that define?

55:38

Is that 15% close to death, 50%, 45%? And

55:42

also there are these things that come up. This

55:45

person has pre-clamps. It is good to develop. I

55:47

can't say when, they're like, I just, I can't operate

55:49

in that area. Because there isn't that health language.

55:52

So do you, I mean, honestly, do

55:55

you think that if a doctor says,

55:58

hey look, I'm going to have to take your child. Goes

56:00

the dad. I'm gonna either have to if I don't take the child the

56:02

mom's gonna die What do you want me to do take

56:04

the truth? He does that and

56:07

you get a wildly aggressive

56:09

prosecutor that says I'm gonna take you to

56:12

court for violating the trigger law in the state

56:14

of Idaho you think a reasonable court of people that

56:16

are made up of Just honest citizens like

56:18

you and I are gonna say yeah, we're gonna throw you in jail for

56:20

that They're

56:22

not going to how long's the the

56:25

law been in effect right been in effect a little

56:27

over a year Have any doctors been prosecuted

56:30

have any cases come forward?

56:31

No

56:32

Doctors are sane

56:34

is they're like I know lawmakers are telling us that

56:37

but there is no guarantee that a

56:39

prosecutor Isn't gonna come after me There

56:41

is no guarantee that a family member isn't gonna sue me

56:44

and I don't want to have to go to court

56:45

and I've also Got kids and I've got a livelihood,

56:48

you know, we have an AG

56:48

that's really aggressive And so they're like the lawmakers

56:51

assurance of no one's gonna come after you. You're

56:53

not gonna lose in court Isn't

56:55

assurance for me. I Understand.

56:57

I mean I spent more than almost 90

57:00

days listening to these exact same arguments And

57:02

so I mean look life of the

57:05

mother is life of the mother It's it's

57:07

not this highly technical highly

57:09

nuanced argument that I

57:11

think that some of these folks are scared about I don't

57:14

know. I mean you're a reporter. I'm an alarm

57:16

guy You know for me, it's pretty

57:18

simple life of the mother. Hey the mother's life. Yeah,

57:20

okay Then then, you know, I I have the ability

57:23

to operate in this space I mean, I think that's where

57:25

OBGYN skip Matt.

57:26

We have legislators who are not

57:27

doctors. That's true but

57:30

but on the flip side you have doctors that

57:32

are trying to tell legislators how to do their job and

57:34

We have constituents

57:36

that are asking us. Hey, this

57:39

is what we want you to enact and

57:41

that's that's where the tension exists

57:48

I ran by him and representative young some of

57:50

the specific experiences. I'd heard from pregnant

57:52

women in OBGYN The

57:54

actual people who've been stock shouldering the

57:57

emotional and logistical burdens of the new abortion

57:59

laws and how disconnected

58:01

they said they felt from this new era in Idaho

58:04

that's supposed to be pro-life and pro-family.

58:07

Here's how Representative Young sees this moment.

58:10

So what I hear you describing a lot

58:13

seems like adjusting to

58:15

a new situation. And undoubtedly

58:18

there's a little pain with every

58:20

change. So

58:22

we just don't

58:25

live in a world where everything works out perfectly

58:27

all the time. And so that just

58:29

because there's some inconvenience associated

58:32

with making the policy change to protect

58:34

life doesn't mean that it's not

58:36

the right thing to do because there's always

58:38

two sides to the story and there are a lot of

58:40

babies who are going to live

58:43

in this state that

58:45

might not have lived. And

58:47

that's valuable. That's worth protecting.

58:50

That's worth paying a price for even if

58:53

it means that there has to be some growing pains

58:55

associated with that.

58:57

OBJYNs in the state have been telling me

58:59

that access to good maternal health care in Idaho

59:02

has deteriorated so rapidly over the last

59:04

year that the state is now in crisis. Does

59:07

that feel accurate to you? Is crisis the word that

59:09

you would

59:09

use?

59:11

Yeah, you know, I guess I haven't seen

59:13

that yet. But

59:16

what I keep coming back to

59:18

as a legislator, if you're a physician

59:20

that doesn't want to adhere to

59:23

a standard of

59:25

protecting both the life of the mother and

59:27

the life of the child, then that

59:29

may be frustrating for you. I

59:32

think there's going to be some sorting out maybe

59:34

as the standard of practice adjusts

59:37

to what the statute is. I

59:40

mean, I guess the concern is like, you

59:42

know, people in adjustment is, yeah. I guess

59:44

what I'm saying, Miki, is I don't think that

59:46

we have to desert this

59:49

value of protecting life in

59:53

order to have a thriving OB community. We

59:56

should be able to make these two things work

59:59

together. And it might take a minute to have

1:00:01

the conversation and figure it out, but I do believe

1:00:04

that it's possible.

1:00:06

In the year after Idaho's new laws went into effect,

1:00:09

Representative Young and other lawmakers did

1:00:11

end up making a few changes to the law. Some

1:00:14

of the most notable, abortions

1:00:17

are now legal for certain kinds of pregnancies

1:00:19

that are never going to be viable, like exopic

1:00:21

pregnancies.

1:00:23

And abortions are now legal for rape

1:00:25

and incest

1:00:26

victims. If those victims

1:00:28

do it in the first 13 weeks and

1:00:30

file a police report. Since

1:00:32

most sexual assault victims never report, this

1:00:35

is still a steep barrier.

1:00:38

But the thing OBGYNs

1:00:38

wanted most, new

1:00:41

wording that would allow them to consider the health

1:00:43

of their pregnant patients, legislators

1:00:45

didn't give them that. The lawmakers

1:00:48

say they're still working on it, but after

1:00:50

that legislative session ended, that's

1:00:52

when most of the OBGYNs who left the

1:00:54

state were decided

1:00:55

to retire early, got out.

1:01:02

We're living in this moment where there's a political

1:01:05

and ideological sorting happening in many

1:01:07

parts of the country. There are people

1:01:09

who are picking up and specifically moving to red

1:01:11

or blue states to escape the laws

1:01:14

their state legislatures have passed. It

1:01:16

just seems easier than trying to change the politics

1:01:18

of the place where you live. But

1:01:21

the big question for the patients I talked

1:01:23

to in Idaho is how many OBGYNs

1:01:26

will still be left standing to care for them after

1:01:29

the sorting out period representative Young

1:01:31

brought up is finally done. In

1:01:34

a recent survey, 50% of OBGYNs in the state

1:01:38

said they were definitely leaving or still

1:01:40

considering leaving.

1:01:42

Neeky

1:01:55

Meek is one of the producers of our show. Two

1:01:57

of the women in her story with high-risk pregnancies. Becca

1:02:00

and Kayla are pregnant again, both

1:02:02

with girls. Kayla recently moved

1:02:04

out of state because of the abortion laws.

1:02:10

♪ Full speed ahead ♪ ♪ You

1:02:13

heard what I just said ♪ ♪ And

1:02:16

don't look back, it's time to

1:02:18

get away ♪ ♪ And

1:02:22

don't waste your time ♪ ♪ Cause

1:02:25

that would be a crime ♪ ♪ You've

1:02:28

got a plan, don't wait

1:02:30

another day ♪

1:02:32

Well, today's program was produced by a viewer at a point called

1:02:34

Nancy Updike. The people who put together our show

1:02:36

today include Jane Ackerman, James Bennett II, Susan

1:02:39

Burton, Jim Dyee Bonds, Sean Cole, Michael

1:02:41

Komette, Bethel Hapte, Steven Alfink, Catherine

1:02:43

Raimondo, Nadi Raymond, Elise Spiegel, Lily Sullivan,

1:02:46

Frances Swanson, Christopher Sotala, Matt Tierney,

1:02:48

Julie Whittaker, and Diane Wu. Managing

1:02:50

Editor, Sara Abdurahman. Our Senior Editor is David Kessner-Bowman.

1:02:53

Our Executive Editor is Emmanuel Barry. Special

1:02:55

thanks today to Emily Corrigan, Stacey Seib, Katie

1:02:57

Bradish, Warren Sanders, Leandra Wright, Jacqueline

1:03:00

Ketler, Paige Belfry, Jen Jackson-Pantano,

1:03:02

Becky Urengo, Liz Woodruff, and Ali Block

1:03:04

from the podcast, The Nocturnist. Our

1:03:06

website, thisamericanlife.org, where

1:03:09

you can stream our archive of over 800 episodes for

1:03:11

absolutely free, thisamericanlife.org.

1:03:15

This American Life is delivered to public radio stations by

1:03:17

PRX, the Public Radio

1:03:19

Exchange. Thanks as always to our program's co-founder,

1:03:21

Mr. Torian Malatia. I don't know how

1:03:24

he snuck into the Republican caucus

1:03:27

this week as they've been fighting over who the new House Speaker

1:03:29

should be. He said he totally

1:03:32

figured out how to tell when any

1:03:34

Republican was gonna vote against Jim Jordan.

1:03:37

They make a really distinctive sound

1:03:41

when they're really, really upset.

1:03:44

I'm Eric Glass, back next week with more

1:03:46

stories of this American life.

1:03:48

♪ Yeah, you knew all

1:03:50

along this thing would turn out wrong ♪

1:03:53

♪ So goodbye, goodbye, goodbye, goodbye,

1:03:55

goodbye, goodbye ♪

1:04:00

Oh, sweet ahead. Oh,

1:04:05

sweet ahead.

1:04:14

This is out of glass. Remember in the TV

1:04:16

show Buffy the Vampire Slayer, how annoyed

1:04:18

and offended the vampires on the show would

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get every Halloween, seeing

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people dress up in vampire costumes. They were like,

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seriously, that's how you see us? That's

1:04:28

what you think we are? Next

1:04:30

week on the podcast of This American Life, we

1:04:32

take that logic further. All

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that supposedly spooky stuff at Halloween,

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we say forget that. Let's talk about the everyday

1:04:39

stuff that's truly scary. This

1:04:44

next week on the podcast, we're on your local public radio

1:04:46

station. You