Maternity wards are closing everywhere because of a lack of babies; the media desperately want to make it a story about abortion bans

Washington Examiner ^ | March 22, 2023 | Timothy P. Carney

[Twotone]

It’s the perfect headline for the major media’s preferred narrative, which means two things: Nearly every outlet will pick it up, and it’s mostly bogus.

“So many doctors are being driven away by Idaho abortion ban that this hospital can’t deliver babies anymore,” one headline about Bonner General in Bonner County, Idaho, declared.

“Idaho hospital to stop delivering babies as doctors flee over abortion ban,” the Guardian said. “Near-total ban on abortions is driving doctors away, hospital says, leading to lack of nearby labor and delivery care for thousands.”

The Today Show reported it this way: “Idaho hospital closes its maternity ward, citing the state’s ‘political climate.’ Idaho has a strict abortion ban. People living in Sandpoint, Idaho will now have to drive at least 46 miles to find the nearest hospital offering perinatal care.”

The Washington Post mentioned the other relevant factors in this one hospital's closure but still misleadingly classified this as an “abortion” story. A dozen other outlets all carried this story about a rural hospital's closure. This is the sort of story they never would carry under normal circumstances, if it didn't give them an opportunity to spread abortion propaganda.

Maternity wards have been closing all over the United States for more than a decade, primarily for a simple reason: People have been having fewer babies every year since 2007. There were fewer children in America at the 2020 census than there were in the 2010 census. Of course, a country with less maternity will be a country with fewer maternity wards.

Rural maternity wards have been especially hard-hit, in part because the economics of labor and delivery are particularly off-kilter.

Next door to Idaho, in completely abortion-friendly Washington state, Astria Toppenish Hospital closed its maternity ward three days before Christmas last year.

[libertylover]

To any doctor who leaves a state because he/she can no longer kill preborn babies: good riddance!

[Vaduz]

Maternity wards are closing everywhere because of a lack of babies.

Fear not Biden let in 7 million illegals in 23 months they breed like rabbits rooms soon to be filled.

[If You Want It Fixed - Fix It]

Supply and demand.

More psych therapy, overdoses, and euthenasia rooms.

Completely tied.

[Segovia]

I think the trial lawyers are responsible for a lot of maternity wards closing. Our regional hospital, which is not “small” by any means, stopped delivering babies ten years ago. When I asked one of the administrators why, she responded that the liability insurance was just simply prohibitive.

[Nifster]

I’m long past child bearing age

[Vermont Lt]

That’s not the case in my example. (My wife is on the “Executive” team that deals with that stuff here. I’ve eavesdropped on the calls—she sits at the kitchen table when working from home. Ha ha)

The “network” we have here has multiple hospitals with 45 minutes of each other. It is more likely the patents and docs prefer to go to a place that has NICUs, “just in case.” I think that patients look at the “country” hospital as less capable. Aside from a high risk situation, that’s simply not true. But try telling a pregnant 30 year old “professional” that.

So, no patients…then no doc is going to go there…then there is no need for support staff…and all of a sudden there isn’t a hospital.

[Nifster]

Indeed.
All hospitals struggle. The smaller rural ones are slammed hard Many patients are on Medicare or Medicaid. The monetary payments are atrociously low ( have been since the sixties)

You can’t keep things running that way

[Nifster]

Filth is not caused by too many people. It is caused by laziness

[Nifster]

True that. It is docs and nurses are leaving in general

When your insurance cost for a single doc per year is half a mil docs just hang it up

[Reno89519]

Culture, and too many people with that culture.

[dfwgator]

[jmacusa]

I don't know what this article is going on about but the ‘’maternity ward’’ in my hospital(southern NJ) is going full blast. And it's no longer referred to as a ‘’maternity ward’’

It's called “Labor and Delivery’’ or simply “L&D’’. Quite a number of these babies are being born to illegal aliens and you and I are paying for it.