‘Fleeing under the cover of darkness’: How Idaho’s abortion ban is changing pregnancy in the state

Jen and John Adkins never expected to have to deliver a package like this.

Jen and John Adkins never expected to have to send a package like this. Unsteady on her feet after a medical procedure last spring, Jen emerged from a clinic with a box she needed to ship urgently. The clock was ticking; if they missed the FedEx cutoff, she and John recalled to CNN, they wouldn’t be able to get crucial test results that would affect the future of their family. They were far from their home in Caldwell, Idaho, a suburb of Boise, after a surreal six-hour drive up Interstate 84 to Portland, Oregon. Idaho’s abortion laws meant they had to seek care across state lines after receiving devastating news about a much-wanted pregnancy. Stories like theirs have become increasingly common, as Jen and several other plaintiffs laid out in a lawsuit filed against the state of Idaho in September. Dr. Julie Lyons, a family medicine physician across the state in Hailey, near Sun Valley, who’s also a plaintiff in the lawsuit, said she now discusses “life flight insurance” with pregnant patients in their first prenatal visits, in case they have a pregnancy complication that doctors can’t treat in Idaho.