Pro-choice timidity in fighting shortage of abortion providers

March 13, 2013 — As Remapping Debate previously reported, the number of state-based restrictions on abortions has increased significantly over the last two years. Defining a “scarcity” of abortion providers to mean a state where either 60 percent of the women live in a county without an abortion provider, or where there are 200,000 or more people for each abortion provider, we found that fully 32 states were experiencing scarcity as of 2008, the last year for which these data are available.

Several individuals we spoke to when preparing this article urged us, apparently independently of one another, not to run the story out of concern about creating a “backlash.”

How are abortion-rights supporters fighting back? More specifically, recognizing that the current environment in many parts of the country is hostile to abortion providers, what are those abortion-rights supporters doing to increase the supply of obstetrician-gynecologists (ob-gyns) who perform
abortions?

Remapping Debate’s investigation found that the efforts being made, particularly when it comes to providing encouragement for, and training to, ob-gyns already in practice but not yet performing abortions, were severely limited; that progress has stalled in providing training for medical students and for doctors completing their residency requirement; and that there is widespread defensiveness among abortion-rights supporters about engaging in aggressive efforts to organize and set out a “counter-narrative” that could support a major increase in the supply of ob-gyns who perform abortions.

Indeed, despite repeated efforts on our part, no representative of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America, which describes itself on its website as “the nation’s leading sexual and reproductive health care provider and advocate,” would agree to be interviewed by Remapping Debate. Several individuals we did speak to when preparing this article urged us, apparently independently of one another, not to run the story out of concern about creating a “backlash.”

Read more at Remapping the Debate.