Two years after Dobbs, Washington reproductive healthcare providers are struggling to keep up with increased demand

Wash­ing­ton State’s repro­duc­tive health care sys­tem has been strug­gling to accom­mo­date surg­ing demand from out-of-state patients in the two years fol­low­ing the Unit­ed States Supreme Court’s hor­rif­ic Dobbs deci­sion over­turn­ing Roe v. Wade, a new report from Sen­a­tor Maria Cantwell (D‑WA) detailed on Monday.

The report paints a dire pic­ture of access in neigh­bor­ing Ida­ho, where restric­tions have com­pelled doc­tors to rec­om­mend patients buy air ambu­lance insur­ance should they need to be flown to Wash­ing­ton to be treat­ed in a life-threat­en­ing situation.

“In Ida­ho, we’ve been fly­ing out about a patient per week to Utah or Ore­gon or Wash­ing­ton because the fetus is non­vi­able or the life of the moth­er is at risk,” Ida­ho Physi­cian Well-Being Action Col­lab­o­ra­tive Co-Chair Dr. Edward McEach­ern said. 

“And they’re not able to find some­one to pro­vide them care in Ida­ho. That heli­copter ride can cost over sev­en­ty grand — that bank­rupts families.”

Unsur­pris­ing­ly, patients from states with restric­tive abor­tion laws have account­ed for much of the increase in Washington’s ser­vices. The report says that Wash­ing­ton has seen a 56% increase in patients from Ida­ho, where abor­tion is out­lawed in almost all cir­cum­stances. Wash­ing­ton has also treat­ed a grow­ing quan­ti­ty of patients from twen­ty oth­er states, like Texas, which has sent three times as many patients as Idaho.

Despite post-Roe restric­tions on abor­tion in as many as twen­ty-two states, the num­ber of abor­tions per­formed in the U.S. is at its high­est in over a decade, accord­ing to the Guttmach­er Insti­tute. Much of the rise is due to increased usage of med­ica­tion abor­tion like mifepri­s­tone. At the same time, the med­ical sys­tems of states where repro­duc­tive care remains acces­si­ble have tak­en on the bur­den of treat­ing many patients who oth­er­wise would not be able to abort their pregnancies. 

While Wash­ing­ton has con­tin­ued to pro­vide essen­tial repro­duc­tive health care ser­vices to patients in need, Planned Par­ent­hood — which pro­vides abor­tion ser­vices — has report­ed longer wait­ing times, and Dr. Sarah Prager of the Uni­ver­si­ty of Wash­ing­ton Medicine’s Depart­ment of Obstet­rics and Gyne­col­o­gy has said that they some­times can­not per­form sched­uled pro­ce­dures due to the influx in out-of-state patients. Ore­gon Health and Sci­ence Uni­ver­si­ty even report­ed a surge in patients from Washington.

Anoth­er Wash­ing­ton doc­tor quot­ed in the report said that the state had become a “safe­ty net for med­ical care, but that we don’t sub­sti­tute going to your doc­tor and get­ting reg­u­lar screenings.”

Repro­duc­tive health care restric­tions aren’t just tax­ing the health sys­tems of pro-free­dom states, how­ev­er. Cantwell’s report notes that OB-GYNs are leav­ing Ida­ho and wors­en­ing med­ical pro­fes­sion­al short­ages, while some med­ical school grad­u­ates are active­ly avoid­ing restric­tive states for their res­i­den­cies so they can learn the full suite of med­ical pro­ce­dures nec­es­sary for their career.

Per Ida­ho Med­ical Asso­ci­a­tion CEO Susie Keller: “every time there’s and adverse court deci­sion, or a lack of action by the state leg­is­la­ture, we typ­i­cal­ly see a bump in the num­ber of physi­cians that leave. We just con­clud­ed our Ida­ho leg­isla­tive ses­sion at the begin­ning of April. And since then, we’ve doc­u­ment­ed five more doc­tors who are leaving.”

A U.S. Supreme Court deci­sion released yes­ter­day rein­stat­ed a pause on some of Idaho’s restric­tions, mean­ing that patients can, for now, receive an abor­tion in the state if their health is at risk. Though the rul­ing will bring mod­est relief to patients and health­care providers, Wash­ing­ton expects to con­tin­ue to deal with ele­vat­ed num­bers of out-of-state patients requir­ing care mov­ing forward.