SEATTLE — Now that a year has passed since women lost the right to abortion, we can assess how our neighbor Idaho's near-total ban on it is faring.
In short: It has accomplished next to nothing.
You can't say categorically that the Idaho ban hasn't stopped a single abortion. But the data suggests that is essentially the case — that the whole thing is a burden, cost and danger to Idaho's own women, but hasn't met the anti-abortion goals that supposedly informed it.
We know this now because clinics in the Pacific Northwest have started releasing data on where women come from to use their services, both back when abortion was legal nationwide, and now that it's not.
Idaho women are simply fleeing.
Take the Kennewick Planned Parenthood clinic in the Tri-Cities, about 130 miles into Washington state from the Idaho border. According to data compiled by U.S. Sen. Maria Cantwell's office, this clinic saw just two patients from Idaho in the five months before the U.S. Supreme Court canceled Roe v. Wade.
In that same five-month period this year? There were 91.
If that rate continues, it means more than 200 Idaho women will journey this year to this one Kennewick clinic, in a strip mall across from a furniture store, for reproductive services.
In all, across 10 Eastern and Central Washington clinics, the number of Idaho patients jumped 56% since Idaho passed the nation's most extreme anti-abortion rules. The state made it a felony for doctors to do the procedure at any moment after fertilization (unless it's to save the life of the mother, or in cases of rape or incest where the woman can produce a police report).
But extreme does not equal effective. The data from Cantwell's office, along with other reviews from researchers in family planning, suggest Idaho's ban has been almost totally lacking in the ban department.
Since Roe fell, there have been 1,230 fewer abortions performed in Idaho than compared to the previous rate, according to the Society of Family Planning, a group that uses clinic data to assess the real-world change.
But Washington alone has done 1,490 more abortions than usual. Oregon has done 1,320 extra. Not all of these originated from Idaho, but in the Eastern Washington and Oregon clinics, an estimated 75% of out-of-state patients are from Idaho.
This doesn't even count Nevada, another blue state that borders Idaho. It has seen 2,580 more abortion procedures than usual since Roe fell.
Based on Cantwell's data, just the clinics in Eastern Washington are projected to treat more than 700 Idaho women this year. These abortions come at greater cost of time, money and anxiety, and in the case of problem pregnancies, the travel carries greater risks.
Most women, though, are obviously finding a way.
"Our health care system is coping with an influx of out-of-state women," Cantwell said.
Doctors now are leaving Idaho. In May the chief physician at one of Boise's top hospitals told CNN that "we're at the beginning of the collapse of an entire system of care."
Summed up Cantwell: "I call on my congressional colleagues to put an end to this chaos and restore access to reproductive rights to every woman in America."
That's not going to happen — not with the current makeup.
What I wonder is: What will Idaho politicians do now — now that the data shows their abortion ban is effectively hollow?
States that are surrounded by other red states, like Louisiana, have actually limited abortions. Idaho has blue states blanketing two of its three American sides, and Canada on the fourth. Geographically it's in a political pickle.
I've always wondered what would happen in the abortion debate when Republicans, the dogs chasing the car for 50 years, actually caught the car. This is that moment. Will they be content with a mostly performative act like the Idaho laws, where they can tell their followers they banned abortion, but really haven't? Or will they ratchet up the pressure and go full bore, targeting women and out-of-state doctors with criminal penalties?
If they choose the latter, it's going to be all-out legal and policy war with Washington. Our state has already passed an abortion "shield law," designed to protect both patients and doctors here from the long arm of Idaho law (or Texas law, or wherever).
The concern is that because Idaho patients aren't stopping at the borders, hellbent state leaders there may decide their law doesn't either. Doctors here could be hit with Idaho subpoenas or sued under Idaho's "bounty law" (where relatives can go after anyone who helps an abortion). It may sound nuts today, and the crime might not stick, but there's little to stop Idaho from trying to arrest a Washington doctor, who has treated Idaho patients for abortion, if that doctor crosses the border into Idaho (to, say, go hiking in Sun Valley).
Something's got to give. In a rational world it would be Idaho's abortion ban. So far it's a combination of punishing and ineffectual, a anti-abortion facade.
If they go the other way, though, look out. Once red and blue states are at odds on basic matters of crime, life and death — or at least won't leave one another alone — you start to worry how strong is the compact that binds these various United States.
