In 2012, I was living in Sagle, Idaho, and had two back-to-back miscarriages. I already had two healthy boys at this point, and the second pregnancy loss was far more severe, with it being into my second trimester. Both miscarriages required medication that would be considered illegal under current Idaho law. I had to take it to help my body get rid of the dead fetus inside of my uterus, helping to avoid infection and potential death. My body was not able to do this on its own, I needed intervention, and trusted my OBGYN when she helped me in this very vulnerable and grief-stricken time in my life. Never did I consider whether or not we would have to take into account the religious beliefs of my state politicians and be labeled and prosecuted as criminals under current Idaho Law.

The implications that this has not only on the health and safety of our citizens, but on the physicians themselves, being pitted against politicians to have to justify what is legal when women's lives are at risk when they have no medical training or experience in this arena of healthcare is insane. This punitive and regressive attack on citizens being forced to submit to religious ideology is the reason for the separation of church and state. It's the very thing that the founders of our nation were trying to avoid and here we are. This is another example of a current attempt to stop the upward trajectory of women's equality, as it does not serve the political and religious agenda of "keeping women in their rightful place." And that place is stuck, uneducated, with no access to science-based healthcare, dependent on a man for her survival, and encouraged to feel gratitude to be able to fill her role in motherhood.

I believe that the lack of assistance during and after pregnancy and for living children is hard proof that this indeed is the goal of far-right conservative agendas. If saving the children was actually at the heart of their policies, then where is the push for affordable healthcare, childcare, adequate maternal and paternal leave in the workforce, and women's equality and education from these same politicians? Why is the foster care system in shambles not part of the conversation or focus from these groups?

In North Idaho, there is an organized and aggressive attack on American values. They are infiltrating our public education system, including schools and libraries, to dismantle them and keep people here from achieving upward social movement. Our citizens have incredibly low pay and no major industry to sustain the rising cost of living. Medical care, including mental healthcare, and access to affordable childcare is in a dire state, and providers are fleeing our ridiculous political climate. We need action now as things are getting worse.

I wrote this poem below after processing my pregnancy losses, three total, and successfully carried three healthy boys to term:

MISSING THE CARRY
I carried, and then I missed
Or was it me at all? Or was it not a time for life?
Was there a fault? Or was there a blame?
Failing to carry before there was a name
Was this the plan, to grow tiny hands only to have them fade away? Not only once
Not only twice
But losing the the third on my own birthday
They asked me if I wanted to know the details, the gender, I did not
The only thing I wanted to know was how to fade away with them, it must be nice where they're going
But I could not leave the living motherless, as I had not missed every carry
The nature of these things happen and are hushed and the healing hidden and hurried
And we smile through the shift at work
You see, the second time I missed, no one was there to carry me
as I bled and I hemorrhaged and lost and died a little, too
I helped customers get their coffee as life slipped away within me
No one to carry me while I missed.