Some pro-abortion medical workers are abandoning women in pro-life states because they care more about killing unborn babies than providing essential medical care to women and families.
Just how many are leaving pro-life states is not clear. News outlets across the country have been publishing story after story about doctor shortages that blame pro-life laws. But the exodus numbers likely are smaller than the reports imply – very few OB-GYNs provide abortions and experts say the number has been shrinking for years. And few, if any, of the reports point out that state abortion restrictions do not actually ban medical care; they ban the elective and unnecessary killing of unborn babies.
Reading through the spin, it’s clear some doctors and nurses care more about elective abortions than they do about providing much-needed health care in rural America.
This week, the Kansas City Star published one such article about a nursing student who is debating whether to work in Kansas or Missouri once she gets her license. Both states restrict or ban abortions.
According to the report:
Jessica Babler, a nursing student at Research College of Nursing in Kansas City, Missouri, is tired of being vilified for wanting to provide abortions, which she views as health care, to her patients.
Babler hopes to be an OB-GYN nurse and practice in Kansas, but she said the Kansas Legislature’s continued efforts to limit abortion — even after Kansans overwhelmingly rejected a constitutional amendment which would have restricted or banned abortion in 2022 — have caused her to reconsider where she wants to practice.
She even claimed that not providing abortions could violate her medical oath to “do no harm.”
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“We have lots of stress, and many times we don’t feel supported by the government. Practicing in a state that’s continually trying to limit abortion access could directly violate my oath to do no harm — how would I know what’s best for my patient if I don’t have access to all the options?” Babler said.
But every state abortion ban includes clear exceptions that allow doctors to save mothers’ lives in emergency situations. And tens of thousands of other doctors say intentionally killing unborn babies in abortions is not medical care; on the contrary, it violates their medical oath to “do no harm.”
These include, Dr. Jonathon Scafford, a pro-life OB-GYN in Wichita, who told the newspaper that states are suffering doctor shortages for many reasons, and pro-life laws are not to blame.
“From my perspective, I don’t see it as intrinsically problematic to have fewer physicians training in a procedure that is not conducive to delivering what I would consider appropriate health care,” Scafford said.
Meanwhile, other doctors have warned pro-abortion lawmakers that they could drive away medical professionals by passing pro-abortion laws. In 2021, for example, New Mexico doctors urged the Democrat-controlled state legislature not to repeal a 1969 abortion ban because it also contained the only conscience protections for medical professionals in the state.
Doctors and Republican leaders said the repeal would cause medical workers to flee New Mexico, but Democrat lawmakers repealed the full statute anyway. But pro-life medical professionals concerns about being forced to abort unborn babies rarely get media attention.
BHP News in South Dakota ran another article this week claiming state laws that protect unborn babies are driving away doctors and residents.
And WCNC in North Carolina published a similar report after its state legislature overrode the governor’s veto and passed a 12-week abortion ban this week. It quoted the Association of American Medical Colleges, which asserts that new doctors applying for residency programs are avoiding pro-life states. However, it did not mention how many.
The implication throughout these reports is that abortion on demand is health care. But most countries across the world protect unborn babies from abortions after 12 weeks, and most doctors do not abort unborn babies at all.
Dr. Monique Chireau Wubbenhorst, a senior research associate at the DeNicola Center for Ethics and Culture at the University of Notre Dame and a board-certified OB-GYN, debunked claims about abortion being health care in a column published at LifeNews this week.
“The percentage of OB-GYNs that do [abortions] is declining and has been for decades, from a high of 40% in 1985 to around 10% at present,” she wrote. “This challenges the talking point that ‘abortion is health care.’ If abortion is ‘essential healthcare for women,’ why are fewer and fewer OB-GYNs performing the procedure? If abortion is healthcare, what medical condition is being treated?”
Last year, Wubbenhorst told a U.S. House committee that legalized abortion does not help reduce maternal mortality either. On the contrary, countries with pro-life laws have some of the lowest maternal mortality rates in the world, she said.
“… until recently in countries where abortion was criminalized and prohibited, I’m thinking particularly of Chile, Ireland and, I think, Cyprus had the lowest rates of maternal mortality in the world. For several years consecutively, Ireland had zero maternal mortality at a time when abortion was completely illegal,” Wubbenhorst said at the time.
Some studies suggest the widespread legalization and availability of elective abortions harm women as well as their unborn babies. In a column at The Federalist in October, Dr. Grazie Pozo Christie, a radiology specialist in Florida, pointed to studies that show abortions are more dangerous than childbirth for mothers.
Pro-life laws save lives: mothers and babies. Tens of thousands of American doctors confirm that killing unborn babies is not health care, and studies show that there are many physical and psychological risks of abortion to mothers.
The overturning of Roe v. Wade will lead to more lives being saved – a fact that abortion activists desperately want Americans to ignore. Currently, 15 states are enforcing pro-life laws that ban or heavily restrict the killing of unborn babies in abortions, and more are fighting in court to do the same.
New research suggests as many as 32,000 unborn babies were saved from abortion in the first six months after the Dobbs v. Jackson ruling.
Doctors and nurses who are leaving states because their laws protect unborn babies are not putting women first. They are prioritizing abortions and abandoning women and children in desperate need of essential, life-saving medical care.
