WORTH OF A WOMAN

“A woman’s health is her capital.”

—Harriet Beecher Stowe—

The Pro-Voice Project acknowledges that race, class, gender identity, sexual identity, and disability all contribute to one’s (in)ability to access quality healthcare. While we refer to “women,” we do not intend to marginalize any gender identity, and we understand that myriad invisible power relations shape further inequalities. We welcome continuing discussion on the interconnectedness of these issues.

In May 2023, the last of Bonner General Health’s (BGH’s) obstetricians and gynecologists quietly left the building. There was no ceremony to mark the day—one wherein over seven decades of service to women, mothers and babies vanished—and there was yet no plan to restore such care in the future. Women in Idaho’s two northern counties, it seemed, were now on their own.

Women were on their own not just for perinatal care, labor and delivery, but for gynecological services, too—pessary checks, hysterectomies, menopause treatments, endometriosis care, and more—meaning that all females, of all ages, were affected. Are affected. For the loss is ongoing.

The reasons cited for the closure were financial, demographic, staffing-related, and—most striking—political. Idaho’s political climate, with its criminalization of abortion care, even in the face of dire pregnancy-related health concerns, is driving physicians out of state. Nearly a quarter of Idaho’s OBGYNs have departed or retired since our abortion bans went into effect.

Such legislative intrusions into the exam room join other systemic factors diminishing women’s ability to access quality healthcare. These include social stigmas, a lack of financial investment or support, a cultural undervaluing of women’s bodies and needs, implicit bias, and more. Reproductive healthcare was a house made of straw; the Idaho legislature blew it down.

BGH was the first to fall, but there have been more hospital obstetrics closures since. A crisis of care is picking up steam in Idaho, which is exactly why we need to instigate and elevate the conversation around the value of women and their healthcare. Women are essential to their families and communities. And their care is essential, too; we ignore its loss at the peril of individual lives and our community's sustained vitality.

Read on, and join us in addressing a real-time problem, destigmatizing its discussion, and envisioning a better future. Collaboratively. Collectively. Let us all think about the worth of a woman.

“Every human on the planet is a product of women’s health.”

—Jessica Federer—