Doctors Didn’t Leave Idaho Because of Its Abortion Law

A ctivists seeking to override Idaho’s Defense of Life Act by ballot initiative this November claim doctors fled the state after the initiative was enacted, and that repeal will bring much-needed practitioners back to the sparsely settled state. The study they cite does not prove their claim of flight — and a pro-abortion law will not increase the number of doctors in the state.

This is a novel strategy by abortion advocates, who normally focus on choice and the autonomy of women. By claiming that Idaho’s pro-life law caused doctors to flee the state and that repeal would reverse that trend, they are opening a new argument, seeking to broaden their coalition by appealing to rural residents who are often underserved. The trouble is: It is utter fiction.

The study — actually, a “research letter” authored in part by the chief medical officer of an insurance network started by the health-care system suing Idaho over its pro-life law — found that Idaho experienced a 35 percent net decrease in the number of OBGYNs between the Dobbs decision and the end of 2024. But it did not conclude that Idaho’s pro-life law caused that decrease. And the data suggest otherwise.

A table showing a subset of physicians who “left the practice of obstetrics in Idaho in 2024” indicates that nearly a quarter simply retired. Another one in five either moved to “consolidate to an urban practice” or otherwise moved within the state. There were no surveys or evidence of motivation for these changes. The authors simply tied it to the Dobbs decision, because, well . . . it’s obvious, right?

This is not even a matter of confusing correlation with causation, because the authors did not demonstrate any correlation. All they demonstrated was coincidence — those two things happened at the same time. It is equally true that Boris Johnson resigned as prime minister of the United Kingdom just weeks after the Dobbs decision was handed down.

Unfortunately for the slapdash authors, another study, published by a JAMA affiliate, set out to look for changes in OBGYN practice locations among 60,085 practitioners nationwide after Dobbs — and it found that “the number of OBGYNs did not significantly change across policy environments.”

Then the authors grouped states among those that seriously restrict abortion, those that have some abortion regulation, and those that allow it based on the New York Times’ own political assessment of the abortion landscape by state. If Dobbs affected the number of OBGYNs practicing in a state, one would expect at least a decrease in states with abortion bans and/or an increase in states that treat abortion as a right. But no such difference appeared across the larger, nationwide sample — the number of practitioners increased slightly in all jurisdictions, and by similar numbers. That study’s data show that the number of OBGYNs in Idaho increased from 2022 to 2024. (The disparity between the two studies may be in their data sources: The research letter was based on a variety of publicly available sources and “local knowledge.” The much larger study was based on data from the National Plan and Provider Enumeration System, a federal database managed by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services.)

A further problem with the original research letter relied on by the Idaho activists is that it did not track trends prior to Dobbs. The second, nationwide study examined data from 2018 through 2024, and its finding of no impact remained. It is hardly newsworthy that rural areas are unfortunately underserved by physicians. Indeed, the U.S. Government Accountability Office issued a report in 2022 that found the number of rural hospitals providing obstetric services declined from 2004 through 2018, and more than half of rural counties did not have such services in 2018.

Upon this collapsible foundation, Idaho abortion activists have piled one more assumption: that a repeal of Idaho’s law protecting life would result in more physicians in Idaho. But the only “evidence” they have for that is a poorly designed study that assumed a correlation that does not exist.

Published reports suggest that the fight over the Idaho initiative may be the most expensive campaign in the state in 2026, with the pro-repeal side sinking more than $2 million into its message that the pro-life law caused doctors to flee the state and that it is the only barrier to them coming back.

As we’ve seen, it’s just not true — but it’s hardly surprising that abortion activists want to talk about anything except abortion.