I’m a Texas-Born OB-GYN—But Abortion Bans Are Forcing Me Out

Vi Burgess is a resident physician in Colorado, in training to specialize in obstetrics and gynecology. The Texas resident went to medical school in the Lone Star State, but says she’d be terrified to return home to practice medicine.

7/26/2025
by Bonnie Fuller, Ms. Magazine

Ever since Texas became the first state in the country to pass the first abortion ban in 2021, doctors specializing in obstetrics and gynecology have been fleeing the state because they fear getting thrown in jail for up to 99 years if they provide an abortion that the state’s anti abortion attorney general doesn’t deem necessary to save a woman’s life. Texas used to be known as a state with top medical care. Now almost 30 percent of the state’s OB-GYN resident physicians plan to escape it in order to treat patients without a Big Brother state government watching over their shoulders.

Continued: https://msmagazine.com/2025/07/26/texas-ob-gyn-doctor-abortion-ban-law-heartbeat/

26.07.2025

Commentary

abortion provider training

‘We are failing’: doctors and students in the US look to Mexico for basic abortion training

Since Roe was overturned, a growing number of would-be abortion providers have begun to leave the country in search of an education as training in the US dwindles

Carter Sherman
Wed 9 Apr 2025

On paper, it should not be difficult for Dr Sebastian Ramos to learn to perform abortions. As a family medicine doctor, Ramos works in a specialty that frequently provides the procedure. He lives in deep-blue California, where it is still allowed. And the administrators running Ramos’s residency program – a kind of apprenticeship that US doctors must undergo to become full-fledged physicians – support Ramos’s desire to learn how to do it.

But over the course of his three-year-long residency, Ramos is guaranteed just three days’ worth of training at Planned Parenthood. Residents get to participate in only a handful of abortions.

Continued: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/apr/09/doctors-mexico-abortion-training

Doctors Are Leaving Conservative States to Learn to Perform Abortions. We Followed One.

Abortion has been heavily restricted in many states post-Roe — and abortion training has all but disappeared, too. Inside one doctor’s journey to obtain that education at any cost.

By Alice Miranda Ollstein
Sep 6, 2024

WILMINGTON, Delaware — The doctor was about midway through her month of training, her head swimming with the new skills she was learning, when a heavy, tattooed patient in her 20s walked into the clinic to terminate an early pregnancy.

In the cramped exam room, closely supervised by the abortion provider who would perform the procedure itself, the doctor began running through the setup tasks she had observed and practiced over the previous weeks: injecting the painkiller lidocaine into multiple spots around the patient’s cervix and inserting a speculum into her vagina.

Continued: https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2024/09/06/doctor-abortion-training-journey-00170741

USA – Abortion is becoming more common in primary care clinics as doctors challenge stigma

NPR, By Selena Simmons-Duffin, Elissa Nadworny
June 21, 2024

It’s a typical Tuesday at Seven Hills Family Medicine in Richmond, Va. The team — which consists of Dr. Stephanie Arnold, registered nurse Caci Young and several medical assistants — huddles to prepare for the day.

Arnold, a primary care physician, runs through the schedule. The 9 a.m. telemed appointment is for chronic condition management. At 10 a.m. there’s a diabetes follow-up. The 11 a.m. appointment is to go over lab results for potential sleep apnea, then there are appointments for knee pain and one for ADHD results review. The schedulers fit in a walk-in patient who has a suspected yeast infection.

Continued: https://www.wvtf.org/2024-06-21/abortion-is-becoming-more-common-in-primary-care-clinics-as-doctors-challenge-stigma

In France, abortion restrictions offset by medical autonomy

While U.S. grapples to recruit OB-GYNs in the aftermath of Dobbs, French restrictions spur less concern

By Ariel Cohen
Posted May 16, 2024

PARIS — In an airless classroom in Paris City University one Friday afternoon in March, a group of 17 female health care professionals — some doctors, some midwives — gathered to spend the weekend learning how to perform surgical abortions.

Sophie Gaudau is the no-nonsense leader of REVHO health network, which started providing abortion training for health professionals 20 years ago, back when abortion access in France was slightly more limited for patients and in terms of what the doctor could do. Today her organization receives support from the French Ministry of Health and Prevention.

Continued: https://rollcall.com/2024/05/16/in-france-abortion-restrictions-offset-by-medical-autonomy/

Physician says residency programs must reassess post-Roe training for miscarriage, abortion care

By KELCIE MOSELEY-MORRIS, INDIANA CAPITAL CHRONICLE
December 27, 2023

More than a year after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe, many have raised concerns about training for obstetrician-gynecologists, particularly in states with civil and criminal penalties for providers if they perform abortions. But researchers from the Person-Centered Reproductive Health Program at the University of California San Francisco have found there is reason to be concerned about training for family physicians in ban states as well.

A study published in the November-December issue of the Annals of Family Medicine found that 29% or 201 of 693 accredited family medicine residency programs in the U.S., are in states with abortion bans or significant restrictions on abortion access.

Continued: https://indianapublicmedia.org/news/physician-says-residency-programs-must-reassess-post-roe-training-for-miscarriage-abortion-care.php

27.12.2023

News

abortion provider training

Dr. Christine Dehlendorf

family medicine programs

Person-Centered Reproductive Health Program

training for abortion providers

USA – Medical students worry about where to train as several states enact abortion restrictions

By James Pollard, Associated Press
Oct 19, 2022

COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — Students in obstetrics-gynecology and family medicine — two of the most popular medical residencies — face tough choices about where to advance their training in a landscape where legal access to abortion varies from state to state.

Abortions are typically performed by OB-GYNs or family doctors, and training generally involves observing and assisting in the procedure, often in outpatient clinics. Many doctors and students now worry about nonexistent or subpar training in states where clinics closed or abortion laws were otherwise tightened after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade.

Continued: https://www.pbs.org/newshour/health/medical-students-worry-about-where-to-train-as-several-states-enact-abortion-restrictions

I’m an ob-gyn. Michigan isn’t ready for what will happen if Roe is overturned.

Lisa Harris
June 3, 2022

I’ve been an obstetrician-gynecologist for 24 years, caring for women giving birth, experiencing miscarriage, and deciding to have abortions. Most patients I see have experienced some or all of these events, at different times in their life.

Since abortion is so politicized and stigmatized, it’s often hard to see that it usually coexists alongside birth and miscarriage in many women’s lives, and in the medical practices of their doctors.

Continued: https://www.freep.com/story/opinion/contributors/2022/06/03/abortion-opinion-not-roe-wade-obgyn/9964313002/

03.06.2022