For Many Rural Women, Finding Maternity Care Outweighs Concerns About Abortion Access

BAKER CITY, Ore. — In what has become a routine event in rural America, a hospital maternity ward closed in 2023 in this small Oregon town about an hour from the Idaho border.

For Shyanne McCoy, 23, that meant the closest hospital with an obstetrician on staff when she was pregnant was a 45-mile drive away over a mountain pass.

When McCoy developed symptoms of preeclampsia last January, she felt she had the best chance of getting the care she needed at a larger hospital in Boise, Idaho, two hours away. She spent the final week of her pregnancy there, too far from home to risk leaving, before giving birth to her daughter.

Six months later, she said it seems clear to her that the health care needs of rural young women like her are largely ignored.

For McCoy and others, figuring out how to obtain adequate care to safely have a baby in Baker City has quickly eclipsed concerns about another medical service lacking in the area: abortion. But in Oregon and elsewhere in the country, progressive lawmakers’ attempts to expand abortion access sometimes clash with rural constituencies…

Read the full story on KFF Health News.

Photo by Lillian Mongeau Hughes.