No OB-GYNs left in town: what came after Idaho’s assault on abortion

In Sandpoint, Idaho, the maternity ward closed down. Within months, medical care for women in the rural community was hollowed out

• This piece was published in partnership with the Economic Hardship Reporting Project

It's a scene out of an American dream: a stretch of city beach buzzes with young families playing and laughing under the hot afternoon summer sun, moms chasing after children, splashing in the shallow ripples of Lake Pend Oreille. We are on the outskirts of Sandpoint, Idaho, a quiet, charming lakeside town in the mountain west. From the idyllic scenery and bustling beach, you wouldn't know this is a place recently overwhelmed with anxiety, grief, and fear born of state politics.

Lauren Sanders relaxes among the beachgoers in a sea-green bikini that reveals her pregnant belly, keeping an eye under her sun hat on her young daughter, Gwen, who's angling to get back in the water.