This week, the ACMS Board of Directors voted to join the Idaho Coalition for Safe Reproductive Health Care. It was a carefully weighed decision with the aim of unifying our membership to stand against a clear and present threat to the practice of evidence-based medicine, the sanctity of the physician-patient relationship, and the future viability of our healthcare workforce.

The ICSRHC's stated mission is to "collaborate with lawmakers to improve state statutes involving reproductive health care. We seek to inform Idahoans, our elected officials, and the courts regarding the public health endangerment resulting from the language choices and lack of specificity currently utilized in Idaho's Total Abortion Ban and Fetal Heartbeat Bans." 

The ACMS board respects that its members hold a variety of personal views around the termination of a pregnancy, either elective or medically indicated. However, the Board had made the decision to endorse and support the Coalition because of the great threat the laws, as currently written, pose to women with unviable and dangerous pregnancies. Moreover, ACMS cannot stand by silently watching the impact on clinicians' personal and professional well-being under the current criminal provisions of the law as well as the long-term ramifications on certain specialties of our Idaho physician workforce.

If you are interested in learning more about the Coalition, please join us for an ACMS Member Town Hall call featuring Dr. Lauren Miller, St. Luke's Clinic Maternal Fetal Medicine, on September 28, 8-8:45 AM or visit the links below.

• Abortion Laws Require Revision to Protect the Health of Idaho Residents, by John Werdel, MD
• With Idaho’s Abortion Ban, We Will Lose Patients from Complications No One Should Ever Die From, by Kylie Cooper, MD
• Idaho Doctors Form Constitution to Revise State Abortion Law (KTVB)
• More information about ICSRCH