When Idaho Banned Abortion, OB-GYNs Fled. The Doctors Who Stayed Are Cracking.

Dr. Robin Sautter raced the eight minutes down the quiet streets of Moscow, Idaho, to the small brick hospital. Inside, in one of the postpartum recovery rooms, a new mother was bleeding out.

Postpartum hemorrhaging, Sautter knew, is one of the most common causes of severe complications after childbirth. In the most serious cases, a patient can bleed to death in under 10 minutes. Sautter's colleague, Dr. Emily Barnes, had swept the uterus for blood clots and remaining pieces of placenta with her hand, a first effort to stop the heavy bleeding. She had also initiated the hospital protocol for a major blood transfusion. Both doctors understood that the key to avoiding a catastrophic outcome was to move quickly through a gantlet of medications and escalating clinical interventions.