Obstetricians and gynecologists are not fleeing from U.S. states where abortions have become illegal, a new study shows.
Since June 2022, when the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the constitutional right to abortion, 14 states have banned nearly all abortions, and an additional six states have banned abortions after six to 12 weeks of gestation.
Researchers who reviewed administrative records of more than 60,000 OB-GYNs in a federal database found that contrary to anecdotal media reports, it does not appear that doctors are fleeing from those states.
"Although the Dobbs decision has increased physicians' concerns about providing reproductive healthcare, there were no observed disproportionate changes in OB-GYN practice location" as of September 2024, they wrote in JAMA Network Open.
The number of OB-GYNs actually increased by 8.3% in states where abortion is banned; 10.5% in states where it is threatened, and 7.7% in states where abortion remains protected, the researchers found.
They noted that concerns prompting OB-GYNs to consider relocation may thus far be offset by other forces, such as ties to patients and local community and the significant effort and disruption associated with relocation.
"Given the media reports, we expected to find some indication of a systemic migration," study leader Rebecca Staiger of the UC Berkeley School of Public Health said in a statement.
"We searched in many different ways. At the end of the day... we determined that, at least at this point - two years after Dobbs - we weren't seeing any evidence."
"I do not doubt that there are physicians who are leaving these states," Staiger said, but added that it is not happening systemically.
An editorial published with the report argues that while the study focused on practicing physicians, patterns of residency training applications may be a more accurate predictor of future trends.
"Emerging evidence shows that abortion bans are associated with small but significant decreases in OBGYN residency applications to programs in ban states," the editorial notes.
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