Resources

Abortion Care Education (ACE) Elective or workshop series from Nurses for Sexual and Reproductive Health

Abortion Fact Sheets from the National Abortion Federation

Abortion Toolkit (plus many other downloadable toolkits!) from Nurses for Sexual and Reproductive Health

Clinical Externship Program from Nurses for Sexual and Reproductive Health

Contraception resources – Bedsider is an online birth control support network for patients ages 18-29. Also check out the Education and Training resources from the Long Acting Reversible Contraception (LARC) Program from the American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists.

The Curricula Organizer for Reproductive Health Education (CORE) is a rich database of peer-reviewed, evidence-based teaching materials. It is an open access tool that anyone can use at any time free of charge.

Early Abortion Education and Training Guidelines for primary care providers – evidence-based standards, competencies and curriculum guidelines for abortion training of primary care clinicians.

Early Abortion Training Workbook, an interactive curriculum designed to train new reproductive health providers to competence.

Health Workforce Pilot Project (HWPP) Fact Sheets and Training Resources – In 2013, California lawmakers passed legislation that expanded the pool of clinicians available to perform first-trimester abortions. This six-year study provided conclusive evidence that abortion is very safe, whether provided by a NP, CNM, PA or physician.

Innovating Education in Reproductive Health is a hub for evidence-based video curricula and teaching resources about abortion and family planning.

Ipas University courses center on safe abortion care, including post abortion care with contraception. Additionally, check out the Start-up Kit for Integrating Manual Vacuum Aspiration (MVA) and Medication Technologies into Patient’s Reproductive Health-Care Services.

Medical Students for Choice provides an externship funding program, an abortion training institute and other resources for medical students.

Reproductive Health Access Project works to help primary care providers integrate abortion, contraception, and miscarriage management into their practice. They have many easy-to-use clinical tools and patient education materials.

Surgical Abortion Training Curriculum (Gold & Planned Parenthood of New York City, 1996); to order, call PPNYC Clinician Training Initiative at 212-274-7255.

Unintended Pregnancy and Prevention Modules – self-guided nursing education modules designed for students to improve their understanding, clarify their values, and learn ways to integrate best practices in intended pregnancy prevention and care into clinical settings.

Abortion Care Network (ACN) invites independent clinics and those beyond “indies” to join!

American Academy of Nursing — Women’s Health Expert Panel

American Association of Physician Assistants (AAPA)

American College of Nurse-Midwives (ACNM)

American Nurses Association — Health Policy, Position Statements, Advocacy

Association of Reproductive Health Professionals (ARHP)

Association of Women’s Health Obstetrics and Neonatal Nurses (AWHONN) — Position Statements

National Abortion Federation (NAF), Clinicians in Abortion Care

Nurse Practitioners in Women’s Health (NPWH)

*This list is by no means comprehensive.

Advocates for Youth
Advocates for Youth published a K-12 sexuality education curriculum called Rights, Respect, Responsibility that meets the National Sexuality Education Standards.

American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) Reproductive Freedom Project
The ACLU works to ensure that every patient can make the best decision for herself and her family about whether and when to have a child without undue political interference.

Civil Liberties and Public Policy (CLPP)
Internship opportunities for individuals interested in activism and leadership in reproductive and sexual rights, freedom, and justice.

Midwest Access Project
A Midwestern hub for traning and advocacy, MAP fills gaps in medical education and clinical training, and reduces barriers to care.

Nurses for Sexual and Reproductive Health (NSRH)
Founded by nursing students with a desire to build support for reproductive health education and training at their schools, NSRH is a national grassroots organization dedicated to providing nursing students with the education, tools and resources necessary to become social change agents within the healthcare system as it relates to sexual and reproductive justice.

Provide
Offers CEU-eligible professional development training and technical assistance for health and social service providers on how to give accurate, informed, and non-judgemental referrals for unintended pregnancy and abortion care.

Reproductive Health in Nursing (RhN)
RhN is a home for nurses providing sexual and reproductive health (SRH) and abortion care. Its purpose is to build community, create opportunity, and be the go-to resource for nurses providing SRH and abortion care.

Shift Stigma
An organization working to strategically shift the stigma around abortion in our culture. Committed to fostering open and honest conversations, lifting up all communities, and advocating for reproductive freedom.

Shout Your Abortion
A decentralized network of individuals talking about abortion on our own terms and encouraging others to do the same.

Sister Song
A Southern-based national membership organization with a mission to strengthen and amplify the collective voices of indigenous patients and patients of color to achieve reproductive justice by eradicating reproductive oppression and securing human rights.

Advancing New Standards in Reproductive Health (ANSIRH) conducts innovative, rigorous, multidisciplinary research on complex issues related to people’s sexual and reproductive lives.

Guttmacher Institute is a leading research and policy organization committed to advancing sexual and reproductive health and rights in the United States and globally.

Ibis Reproductive Health provides research and engages in a number of projects related to abortion.

This Argentinian-American patient has been in training to be a Patient’s Health Nurse-Practitioner in the U.S. She takes time to reflect on abortion care in the Americas as she tours Orientame, a patients’ health clinic in Colombia. The open abortion care she sees in Colombia contrasts in important ways to what she knows of abortion care in Argentina and even in the U.S.
https://rewire.news/article/2014/02/05/experience-fundacion-orientame-bogota-model-reproductive-care-latin-america/

NPR interviews a physician about the care that nurse practitioners give to patients seeking abortion through telemedicine: Dr. Vanessa Cullins, then Vice President for Medical Affairs at Planned Parenthood Federation of America, describes the practice of telemedicine abortion, which is often administered by nurses.
http://www.npr.org/2011/01/24/133182875/Growing-Controversy-Surrounds-Telemed-Abortions

A nurse practitioner in the south discusses her challenges as a patients’ health care provider in a Catholic health system. She talks about the inventive ways she finds to remain true to her vocation and serve her patients. She jumps through hoops to give them evidence-based counseling and contraception, and discusses pregnancy options that every patient deserves.
https://www.reproductiveaccess.org/2014/07/religious-restrictions-vs-quality-care/

The ACLU and Planned Parenthood are teaming up to challenge a “physician-only” law in Maine that requires abortion providers to be physicians. They argue that barring nurse practitioners and nurse midwives from providing abortions is inconsistent with the spirit of the law.  Should their suit succeed, it could open the door for legal challenges to physician-only laws in 41 other states. Challenging physician-only laws is one of the most powerful advocacy tools available to the movement for abortion access.
https://www.bostonglobe.com/news/nation/2017/11/24/maine-lawsuit-seeks-redefine-who-allowed-perform-abortions/tYkHJAbJPfseG8NeWybUmM/story.html

Here’s a fiery account of a Nurse Practitioner student training to provide abortion. After having her own positive and negative experiences in reproductive health care, she decided to take things into her own hands and become the reasonable person at the other end of the speculum. Fair warning: she uses the f-word for emphasis.
https://www.thehairpin.com/2011/03/ask-an-abortion-provider/

Here’s a more safe-for-work version of the above:
http://womensenews.org/2013/02/abortion-provider-in-closet-self-protection/

In the UK, the laws allowing midwives to perform medication abortion and assist in aspiration abortion were clarified in 2013 to underscore the role of midwives in abortion care. This author reflects on the rhetoric that politicians use to shame patients and midwife providers of abortion. She argues that sweeping generalizations and religious declarations have no place in clinical care.
http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/your-religious-beliefs-have-no-place-in-an-abortion-clinic-9473255.html

Midwives in Ontario are advocating for the expansion of their scope of practice to include the provision of medication abortion. This expansion of care would be especially important for patients in rural Ontario where abortion providers are fewer and much farther between. The Ontario Health Minister, Eric Haskins, opposes the expansion of services, citing bureaucratic barriers. Katrina Kilroy, head of the Canadian Association of Midwives, states that midwives across Canada wish to provide the service.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/health/midwives-ontario-abortion-1.4380297

An LPN who works at a freestanding birth center and abortion clinic reflects on her work.  She also discusses frankly the ways that her own abortions influenced her journey into motherhood. A birth center that is also an abortion clinic may surprise some people, but it is also representative of the fact that most patients who have abortions are also mothers.
http://www.cosmopolitan.com/politics/a8254375/abortion-gynecology-birth-nurse/

A nurse from Tennessee was pro-life for most of her life. Then, after graduating from nursing school at age 38, she started to see things differently. She started to see what abortion really meant, and how important a choice it was for so many patients and families.  She concludes, “[Abortion] is a reality, and we need to support others in that situation and not condemn them, not criminalize them. As a nurse, my sole job is to support my patient.”
https://www.google.com/amp/www.cosmopolitan.com/politics/amp55344/pro-life-abortion-nurse/

Taylor D (2012, July) NPs and sexual and reproductive healthcare services: Analysis of supply and demand. UCSF ANSIRH

Taylor D, McLemore M, Anderson P (2013, October). The real gold standard: safe, licensed professional abortion care. UCSF ANSIRH.

Taylor D, McLemore M, Anderson P (2014, January). Commemorating ROE by expanding abortion access. UCSF ANSIRH

The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine published a report in March of 2018 confirming the safety and quality of abortion care in the United States. They concluded that, “both trained physicians and advanced practice clinicians (physician assistants, certified nurse-midwives, and nurse practitioners) can safely and effectively provide medication and aspiration abortions.” The full report: NAS Report on Safety & Quality of Abortion Care.

The American Civil Liberties Union, Planned Parenthood, and the ACLU of Maine filed suit in September of 2017 to challenge Maine’s Physician only law.

The American Journal of Public Health published a study in March of 2018 that ANSIRH led that systematically compared laws governing abortion-providing facilities with laws governing facilities providing other health services. The paper may be accessed without charge at this link: “State law approaches to facility regulation of abortion and other office interventions.” Please note that some of the study’s results are provided in supplemental online materials, rather than in the main body of the paper.  The supplemental materials, linked here, include tables outlining the applicability and requirements of the TRAP laws and facility laws governing other office interventions in the 50 states and District of Columbia, and a citation list of all laws in the study. Finally, the datasets underlying the study are publicly available on the LawAtlas platform of our study collaborators, the Policy Surveillance Program of the Center for Public Health Law Research. These datasets document the features of the laws in the study, and LawAtlas allows you to map and sort those features, and to see the legal citations and text underlying them. The datasets may be accessed at the following links:  TRAP laws and Office-Based Surgery laws.

In 2010 the National Health Law Program (NHeLP) published a report on health care refusals and denials of care based on religious and political justifications. Their study details standards of care, consequences of refusals, informed consent, and how these issues apply to pregnancy prevention and abortion.

The National Women’s Law Center has a number of resources to help clinicians facing employer hostility and discrimination towards their participation in either providing or advocating for abortion care. Fact sheets on discrimination against health care professionals can be found here, as well as a Know Your Rights Brief, and this presentation from 2017.

From the California Health Workforce Study on improving abortion care access. Fact sheets summarizing the HWPP aims and background, study methods and findings, and policy strategy for durable change.