Assessing the abortion content of advanced practice clinician (APC) education and training

In collaboration with the National Abortion Federation and the Provide (formerly the Abortion Access Project), we completed a national study of the abortion content of nurse practitioner, physician assistant, and certified-nurse midwifery programs in the US. Of the programs that responded to our survey, 53% reported that their programs provide didactic instruction on surgical, manual vacuum aspiration, or medication abortion; only 21% reported including at least one of these three procedures in their routine clinical curricula. As an increasing number of American women live a county without an abortion provider, expanding APC programs’ didactic and clinical education on abortion services could help to give more women access to safe abortion care.