Reporter Joe Lawlor did some excellent work lately (“Closure of Maine’s rural birthing centers is part of national ‘crisis,'” Dec. 20).

Lawlor quotes a recent Roux Institute report authored by Kathy Simmonds. The report highlights the increasing difficulty of rural hospitals to create the competent clinical care teams needed to keep low-volume birthing centers open.

At least this challenging situation in Maine is not being aggravated by intrusive and misguided laws banning reproductive health care services, including abortion.

In Maine, we trust pregnant people to know what is best for them and their families. In Maine, doctors and advanced practice clinicians are not forced to consult with ideologically driven lawmakers before providing best-practice care in challenging medical situations.

In other U.S. states with laws banning abortion, residents have already witnessed a decline in physicians willing to practice medicine in their states. Lawmakers, ill-prepared to understand the complexities and nuances of practicing medicine, have inserted their religious and political views into doctors’ offices and hospitals.

Those people opposed to reproductive human rights may have felt like they had a victory when their states banned abortion health care, but now those states have doctors fleeing, and they are having a hard time recruiting new doctors to replace them. Add this to a healthcare system already burdened by a shortage of providers.

The next time someone suggests adding intrusive and misguided “pro-life” abortion bans in Maine, people would be well served to keep these disastrous unintended consequences in mind.

Nancy Foss
Falmouth