“Medical Students Unite for Choice”

Alarmed by the dangerous shortage of trained abortion providers in the United States, Medical Students for Choice, a network of over 10,000 American and Canadian medical students and residents, is working to destigmatize abortion provision and to persuade medical schools and residency programs to recognize that abortion is an essential part of the reproductive health services curriculum.
In “Medical Students Unite for Choice” Miranda Balkin, the organization’s national president, elucidates the reasons we all want our doctors to elect to have some training in abortion before they complete medical school.

Miranda highlights many of the startling statistics cited on the Medical Students for Choice website:
And our neighbors in Canada are similarly beset with lack of access to abortion services:

As noted in the Washington Post a medical student has a "Hard Choice" to make when she tries to decide if she has what it takes to join the diminishing ranks of abortion providers:

Thirty-five years after the U.S. Supreme Court legalized abortion in Roe v. Wade, any mention of abortion is rare in the first three or four years of medical school, when students must zero in on a specialty and eventually apply for residency training. Even in Maryland, where about 61 percent of voters approved a referendum guaranteeing abortion in 1992 and which has the fourth-highest abortion rate in the country, abortion is not taught in any formal lectures at the state's flagship medical school. The subject is viewed as too controversial, despite the fact that, according to the nonprofit National Center for Health Statistics, abortion remains among the most common surgical procedures for reproductive-age women. Nevertheless, many people...believe abortion is the murder of an unborn child and should not be legal, much less taught to future doctors.
To learn about the procedure, students can ask to observe abortions for a day in their third year, during the rotation through obstetrics... The only other possibility for more training is offered by the national Medical Students for Choice office -- an "externship" at a local clinic where a student can observe abortions for a few weeks during the break between first and second years. |MORE

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News about reproductive health:
What's New on Future Choices

In her August 2009 TV appearance on Future Choices Miranda Balkin points out that:

• MSFC now has over 10,000 members at 134 medical schools across the U.S. and Canada.
• Approximately 50% of first and second year medical students and 200 residency programs in North America are educated by reproductive health courses and other curriculum changes initiated by MSFC members. But --
• More work is needed to ensure that all medical students and residents have access to comprehensive
  reproductive education.
• MSFC continues to fill the gaps in medical education.

The assassination of Dr. George Tiller in June 2009 inspired a number of thoughtful articles about abortion, notably:

Don't give up the fight for choice on abortion St. Petersburg (FL) Times Robyn E. Blumner July 12, 2009 In reading about the life of Wichita, Kan., physician George Tiller, who was murdered in May, I was reminded again of an abiding truth: Doctors who perform abortions for desperate women are courageous, moral agents for good. If we are going to be debating abortion again — and skirmishes are already erupting over whether abortion services will be included in the nation's health care overhaul — the prochoice side needs to pridefully assert the moral high ground. Because it is ours. The column continues, describing her "worries" that Democrats have gotten "gutless" on this issue. |MORE

For further coverage, go here.

When is Future Choices aired in your community?
See Local TV schedule for time and channel in each participating community in Westchester County.

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