At 6:58 a.m. Thursday, Dr. Angela Adams Powell addressed the nurses at the south Alabama hospital where she had delivered babies for more than 25 years.
“I was afraid I might not be able to speak,” she said, her voice breaking, “and I might not.”
In two minutes, the labor and delivery department at Monroe County Hospital would shutter, leaving the community without a birthing hospital. In two minutes, pregnant women in a county where 22% of residents live below the poverty line would be forced to travel 35 to 103 miles for the next nearest option.
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Liz Kirby, Monroe County Hospital’s CEO, said a physician shortage was behind the closing. After the Supreme Court decision overturning Roe v. Wade, some hospitals in states with strict abortion bans have warned that it could become harder to recruit OB-GYNs, though Kirby said she wasn’t aware of that as a factor in this case. Residency applications for the specialty have also dropped more in states with abortion bans than nationally.
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Alabama is in the throes of a maternal and infant health crisis, with some of the highest rates of infant and maternal mortality in the country. Physicians say those losses should be answered with more access to care — not less.
Senator Tuberville, currently stiffarming the army’s leadership to create a queue for fascist drones to serve dictator trump in the Army on the premise that he’s agains the Army’s allowing abortions, is the senator from this state.
Doing great work there coach. No wonder you were elected.
Fucking traitors, the lot of them.