How Christian Nationalism Created a Reproductive Health Crisis in Idaho
After the Supreme Court overturned Roe last year, Idaho was one of the first states to ban abortion outright. And lawmakers haven’t stopped at that: In the 2023 legislative session, they invented the new crime of “abortion trafficking” and disbanded the state’s maternal mortality review committee.
Idaho is one of the country’s most rural states, and it was already difficult to access reproductive health care there. Now, doctors are fleeing, maternity wards are shutting down, and people are terrified. There’s been plenty of national coverage of this. But I’ve been frustrated by a lot of it.
When talking about Idaho, national outlets often emphasize that Idaho is one of America’s “reddest” states. On paper, that’s true. But having grown up nearby in Wyoming, I know that doesn’t explain what’s happening in Idaho, which has undergone perhaps the most extreme version of the political shift we’ve seen throughout the Intermountain West: the rise of Christian nationalism. Establishment conservatives are trying and failing to hold onto power while their party crashes rightward. This isn’t a case of voters getting what they wanted. This is the result of a careful, systematic takeover of government by a vocal minority. And that vocal minority won’t be stopping with Idaho.
So I went there, to talk to people on the ground. I spent ten days on an epic road trip throughout Idaho, starting in the northern mountain lakes of Coeur d’Alene and Sandpoint, making my way down to the capital, Boise, and finally heading east to Idaho’s Magic Valley. So many people made time to talk with me on my in-and-out journey through their hometowns, which I think is a testament to how much people in Idaho care about their home and want it to be better. I’m immensely grateful to them. While I grew up nearby, I’m still an outsider, especially now that I live in New York. I never take it for granted when people who’ve been burned by national press over and over again take a chance on me.
The result of my trip is a series of three in-depth articles. The first is out today. It examines the intense culture of fear around pregnancy I encountered, and the history of extremism that might explain why Christian nationalists have managed to seize power so effectively in Idaho. Read it now!
Stay tuned for the next two installments, which will profile some of the far-right figures pulling the strings in Idaho politics, but also introduce you to the many people in all corners of the state who are working to fight them. I really hope you’ll give these a read.
This reporting trip was generously funded by the International Women’s Media Foundation, which previously funded my reporting on the story of Kristyn Smith, a woman who was denied an abortion in West Virginia.
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As usual, I’ve been delinquent in sending out newsletters, so here are a few things I’ve written since you last heard from me in… August:
I have a column now. So far, I’ve tackled labor issues in the reproductive rights and justice movement and asked whether anti-trans activists might use the “crisis pregnancy center” playbook to target trans people.
Speaking of anti-trans activists, I reported on how they use harassment, intimidation, and violence just like the anti-abortion movement does, and what implications that has for gender-affirming care.
I wrote about the promises and failures of California’s reparations program for survivors of forced sterilization in state institutions, which concludes at the end of this year and rejected more than three times the number of applicants it approved.
Finally, I dove into the sort of thing that might seem really dry but is in fact highly consequential: The fight over fetal “viability” language in abortion rights ballot measures, and how abortion rights organizations might be shooting themselves in the foot by including it.
