WASHINGTON – Bans or strict restrictions on abortion access enacted by Republican state lawmakers have led to a decline in the number of medical students seeking to practice in those states, and a handful of Democratic U.S. senators said Tuesday that the laws must be repealed.
During a press conference just steps from the U.S. Capitol, lawmakers and reproductive rights advocates quoted: test published in early May by the Association of American Medical Colleges Research and Action Institute.
The study “found that fewer U.S. medical school graduates applied to residency programs in states that banned or restricted access to abortion than to residency programs in states where abortion remained legal.”
In Alabama, for example, a study found that the number of people applying to OB-GYN residency programs in the state dropped by 21.2% from 2023 to 2024, Alabama Reflector reported.
Medical residency programs begin after students graduate from medical school and can last anywhere from three to seven years, depending on the specialty in which the doctor is training. According to AAMC.
The AAMC Institute’s website says it requires “an innovative and impartial approach to policy challenges, redefines complex problems, and offers actionable solutions to improve American health care among policymakers and the public.”
Washington state Democratic Sen. Patty Murray said the downward trend could worsen physician shortages in those states given that obstetrician-gynecologists are also leaving them.
“This shouldn’t surprise anyone, because why go somewhere where politicians and judges can revoke your medical diploma and force you to put patients at risk?” Murray said. “Why practice in a state that can result in loss of license, heavy fines, and even prison time if you dare to help a patient get the abortion care she needs?”
Congress, she said, must work to restore nationwide protections against abortion, which were in place for nearly 50 years until the Supreme Court overturned the landmark Roe v. Wade case less than two years ago.
Baldwin warns Wisconsin could lose critical care
Wisconsin Democratic Sen. Tammy Baldwin said during a news conference that fewer and fewer doctors are choosing her home state to start their careers.
“Universities in states with abortion bans are forced to send students out of state for reproductive care training,” Baldwin said. “I have heard from physicians who are commuting across state lines to work because they can no longer provide comprehensive care in their own communities.”
The decision by some medical students to seek residency programs in states that protect abortion access could lead to states like Wisconsin “losing critical care for half of our population,” Baldwin said.
“Fewer OB-GYNs mean fewer doctors to deliver babies and perform prenatal and postpartum tests to give moms and babies the healthy start they deserve,” Baldwin said.
“This means fewer doctors are performing routine productive reproductive care, such as performing mammograms and providing women with safe and reliable birth control,” Baldwin said. “This means more women in reproductive care deserts are unable to find emergency treatment.”
Baldwin said it “made sense” that medical residents sought to study and practice in states that protected abortion access.
“If you were a medical student or doctor, would you rather work in a country that limits the science-based care you can provide or one that kicked politicians out of doctors’ offices?” – said Baldwin.
Arizona ‘whiplash between two abortion bans’
Arizona Democratic Sen. Mark Kelly said doctors and patients in his state “live with uncertainty and chaos as our state teeters between two abortion bans.”
“I’ve talked to several doctors who are thinking about leaving the state and many who have already left the state,” Kelly said. “I was on a Zoom call and I saw stacks of boxes in the back. This is because they cannot exercise under the current circumstances.”
The number of physicians applying to residency programs in Arizona “decreased by almost 20% in 2023–2024. However, for obstetricians and gynecologists, the number of applications decreased by more than 25%, Kelly said.
Kelly stated that the only way to reverse this situation “is to codify abortion rights into law once and for all.”
Dr. Raegan McDonald Mosley, CEO of Power to Decide and a practicing physician in Maryland, said that over the past two years she has treated “patients who have traveled hundreds or even thousands of miles to receive care from me.”
Restrictions or bans on abortion access, she said, have led to longer wait times in states that protect access, leading to complicated situations for doctors and patients.
The AAMC Institute study “shows that students graduating from U.S. medical schools are less likely to apply for positions in states with abortion bans and restrictions,” Mosley said.
“These consequences will only deepen health inequities across the country,” Mosley said. “As healthcare professionals, we trust that our patients know what they need. We also know that abortion is health care. And yet too many of us cannot provide this care, and too many people suffer as a result.”
Abortion pills sent to patients in banned states
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, a Democrat from New York, said he “just heard last week about a young doctor who left his home state of Oklahoma to come to New York to begin an OB-GYN residency at our state university.”
He said New York has passed so-called “shield laws” that protect doctors within state borders “from prescribing and mailing abortion pills to patients in states that have banned abortion.”
In the coming weeks, the U.S. Supreme Court is expected to decide whether access to medication abortion – a two-drug regimen approved up to 10 weeks of pregnancy – will remain at current levels or return to prescribing guidelines that were in place before the changes began. in 2016.
The issue could change significantly over when and how doctors will be able to prescribe mifepristone and misoprostol for abortion and miscarriage treatment. Judges heard oral arguments in this case in March.
A majority of the nine justices deciding to restore prescribing guidelines to what they were eight years ago would mean doctors would no longer be able to prescribe the two drugs via telehealth and patients would no longer be able to receive them by mail.
Schumer said during Tuesday’s news conference that restricting access to abortion is “cruel” and has led to “chaos among patients and doctors.”
