Idaho’s Pro Voice Project highlights stories from women trying to have children but who needed abortions after pregnancy complications

 Abortion is illegal in Idaho, which borders Oregon to the east. For years leading up to the U.S. Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision overturning Roe v. Wade, women’s health advocates warned that maternal care and abortion services were part of an intrinsically woven set of OB/GYN care that women’s health depended on. Now that Idaho has outlawed abortion – the state's ban is among the most restrictive in the nation – residents are living out what advocates predicted. Some women who want to have children can now no longer get maternal care where they live, and some have suffered complications during pregnancies they desperately wanted to take to term but could not, because of their own health or fetal anomalies.

Jen Jackson Quintano lives in North Idaho with her husband and two children and runs a tree service business. She began a storytelling effort she calls the Pro Voice Project, for women to tell their own stories about accessing – or not being able to access – reproductive health services. The project has held live performances mostly around Idaho for women to tell their own stories at the microphone. In some cases where they haven't felt comfortable doing so, their stories are performed by actors.

Desi Ballis and her husband lost their third child, Tucker, a year ago, in the second trimester when the couple discovered he had a life-threatening condition. Ballis, who lives in Haley, Idaho, was at risk of life-threatening complications before she made it to Utah to have a medically necessary abortion. In Idaho, she would not have been able to get that care until she was actively dying.

Ballis and Quintano join us to share their personal experiences and what they hope to achieve by sharing some of the most painful experiences of their lives. Members of the Pro Voice Project will be in Portland March 1 for an event that highlights women’s stories in Idaho and in Oregon, where women face no state restrictions on abortion, but some still struggle with other barriers to access.