According to new statistics from the Association of American Medical Colleges, for the second year in a row, students graduating from U.S. medical schools were less likely to apply this year for residency positions in states with abortion bans and other significant abortion restrictions.

Since the Supreme Court in 2022 overturned the constitutional right to an abortion, state fights over abortion access have created plenty of uncertainty for pregnant patients and their doctors. But that uncertainty has also bled into the world of medical education, forcing some new doctors to factor state abortion laws into their decisions about where to begin their careers.

Fourteen states, primarily in the Midwest and South, have banned nearly all abortions. The new analysis by the AAMC — a preliminary copy of which was exclusively reviewed by KFF Health News before its public release — found that the number of applicants to residency programs in states with near-total abortion bans declined by 4.2%, compared with a 0.6% drop in states where abortion remains legal.

Notably, the AAMC’s findings illuminate the broader problems abortion bans can create for a state’s medical community, particularly in an era of provider shortages: The organization tracked a larger decrease in interest in residencies in states with abortion restrictions not only among those in specialties most likely to treat pregnant patients, like OB-GYNs and emergency room doctors, but also among aspiring doctors in other specialties.

  • unmagical@lemmy.ml
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    7 months ago

    If you had to choose the possibility of a murder charge and capital punishment for following your oath or simply not, why would anyone opt for the former?

    • barsquid@lemmy.world
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      7 months ago

      Have you ever seen a libertarian screeching about how regulations and licensing is the sole determining factor making medical care expensive? I think Repubs will remove medical licensing.

      Otherwise banning travel between states is too unconstitutional even at the current corruption level of SCOTUS. Maybe if they can get another couple of Clarences they could do it.

    • SacralPlexus@lemmy.world
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      7 months ago

      I doubt it will come to this. Instead what they will do is pass laws so that mid level providers can legally practice like physicians. Just make physicians unnecessary. Hospitals love it because PAs are way cheaper to employ. Everyone wins (except for the patient but we don’t need to think about that).

  • jeffw@lemmy.worldM
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    7 months ago

    We already have a dire shortage of medical practitioners, especially in rural areas. And some of the states with these bans have a lot of rural areas.

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    7 months ago

    My sister is overseas and planning to come back stateside in a few years. She wanted to move back to Texas to be close to the rest of the family but says, “I can’t risk living in Texas if I want to have more kids”. My friend’s gyno gave her the hard sell on having her tubes tied recently, because there’s nothing that can be done for her if she gets pregnant. I know a guy who works in a Houston ER, who is getting increasingly weird policies from his administrators when it comes to treating pregnant patients, because nobody wants to risk taking on liability for a miscarriage or still birth.

    These are all the “unforeseen” consequences of the new abortion laws. And it certainly doesn’t help that states with shit abortion laws already had 50-300% higher maternal mortality rates and infant mortality rates before these laws were passed.

    The so-called pro-life agenda is directly leading to few people having kids and more people losing access to health care.

    Pro-Life is going to get a ton of people killed.

    • TexMexBazooka@lemm.ee
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      7 months ago

      “Elections have consequences”

      This particular article though- their seventh child? fucking chill.

    • barsquid@lemmy.world
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      7 months ago

      I wish it only harmed degens. This utterly predictable consequence makes medical care even more inaccessible in those states. Mostly for disadvantaged women, many of whom voted against this shit.

    • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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      7 months ago

      Its more the reverse.

      US anti-abortion hysteria bled into Russian politics over the last decade. A country that had some of the most progressive women’s health care laws in the world has been rolling them back at a rapid clip, thanks to lobbying from western evangelicals and their billionaire white nationalist sponsors.

    • xohshoo@lemmy.world
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      7 months ago

      Did you read the whole thread? It was more than just saying “I’m skeptical” with well reasoned and sourced data correlating ERAS region preference signaling

      Thought maybe Lemmy would be a return to og Reddit style discussion rather than brigading downvotes as per the last few years…but nah

      • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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        7 months ago

        However you slice it, what these laws accomplish is to ratchet up liability for doctors and clinics treating pregnant women. The last thing I’d want is a pro-life doctor treating my mother, given her history of miscarriages. If Texas evangelicals had it their way, my mom would have bleed out on the operating table after her first failed pregnancy, rather than going on to have four more kids.

        • barsquid@lemmy.world
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          7 months ago

          Yes, they don’t give a shit about actually saving lives. They certainly do fuckall to protect a child after it is born. They want to control women.

      • Boozilla@lemmy.world
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        7 months ago

        Yup. And many of them are spontaneously aborted naturally anyway. Miscarriages are very common.

        • barsquid@lemmy.world
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          7 months ago

          And why are we talking about the fetus alone as having a future? That woman forced to incubate a fetus might be losing her chance at medical school. She might be the difference between saving my life or not. Women are not just for growing children.

            • barsquid@lemmy.world
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              7 months ago

              What happened to you is really awful. You made your decision and you love your children. You were resilient enough to finish a Master’s in addition, I’m not certain everyone could or would.

              I don’t want it to be up to you or that state to determine the best choices for other people medically, including mentally. It should be between them and their doctors.

        • Bremmy@lemmy.ml
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          7 months ago

          Science says it’s a meat bean. You’re just straight up wrong. It’s not a child in every sense of the word

        • barsquid@lemmy.world
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          7 months ago

          It could also be a Repub who wants to force unwilling women into medical slavery as incubators.

          I don’t think maybe saving my life is an acceptable reason to force women to be medical equipment. To be clear, I don’t think 100% certainty of saving my life is an acceptable reason either.

          It is a meat bean. If someone chooses to incubate it into a child that’s okay too.

        • eran_morad@lemmy.world
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          7 months ago

          This line of reasoning is maddeningly stupid. Guess what, we’re all made of stardust. Don’t be mistreating any matter whatsoever lest you kill a potential life.