A Christian pro-life pregnancy center in northern Idaho is seeing increased demand for its services after a local hospital closed its labor and delivery unit in 2023, CBS News reported May 18.
The unit was the city of Sandpoint’s only labor and delivery ward. After it closed, the hospital’s OB-GYNs made what KFF Health News described in a 2023 report as a “quick exodus” from the state.
Amid the loss of local maternal resources, 7B Care Clinic, an affiliate of a nationwide network of more than 1,000 Christian evangelical centers, is working to expand its outreach to local mothers, according to CBS News.
“We’re seeing a lot more people,” 7B Executive Director Janine Shepard told the news outlet.
She told CBS News that the center wants to bring obstetric care to Sandpoint and has reached out to a hospital just across the border, in Washington State, to see if an OB-GYN could come weekly. The center also aims to expand its current building, something the team would never have considered if the hospital hadn’t closed its obstetrics unit.
.“There’s such a need,” she said. “And our community suffers because of it.”
CBS News reports that “in a town with limited maternity care, 7B has been providing important resources to struggling low-income women,” while also noting criticism from people concerned about the center’s pro-life stance and lack of medical licensing.
Shepard said 7B provides information for women about abortion, adoption, and parenting, hoping to support parents in choosing adoption or parenting over abortion. According to CBS News, the center also offers pregnancy tests, ultrasounds, community support groups, and parenting and life skills classes..
CBS News linked changes in Idaho’s OB-GYN access to the overturning of Roe v. Wade and the subsequent protections of unborn children that came into effect afterward.
Andrea Swartzendruber, an associate professor of epidemiology and biostatistics at the University of Georgia, told CBS News that many crisis pregnancy centers have expanded in areas of the U.S. with limited maternity care access – to her chagrin.
She said the centers have “capitalized on gaps in access to healthcare” for years, while they do not “have the infrastructure or ability or training to bridge those gaps.”
However, the Charlotte Lozier Institute found that pro-life pregnancy centers across the country provided more than $452 million in medical care, educational services, and material items to families and expectant mothers in 2024, as Zeale News previously reported.
According to CBS News, others see the pro-life pregnancy center’s services in Idaho as a good thing.
“The nicest thing about 7B is all their services are free,” said Lori Sabin, a licensed midwife in a town 30 miles from Sandpoint. She said the pregnancy center particularly benefits people without health insurance and young first-time mothers who need parenting classes and material support.
“They can point them in the right direction,” Sabin said. “They tell them where the midwives are; they tell them where the OBs are.”