A new study provides more good news for pro-life advocates, as it shows fewer doctors are willing to perform abortions than before — creating a situation where the lower availability of abortion may be helping to reduce abortions.
-- From "Few obstetricians and gynecologists perform abortions" by Shari Roan, Los Angeles Times 8/23/11
Obstetricians and gynecologists are trained as women's health specialists. But only 14% provide abortions.
A 2010 opinion paper from the ethics committee of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists argued that ob-gyns are obligated to refer their patients to abortion providers if they do not offer the service themselves. But that paper was met with controversy, according to the authors of the new survey.
". . .previous research has shown that substantial minorities of physicians do not believe they are obligated to refer patients for or provide information about how to obtain procedures to which the physician has a religious or moral objection," they wrote.
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From "Fewer Doctors Willing to Do Abortions, New Study Shows" by Steven Ertelt, LifeNews.com 8/23/11
The new report, published today in the journal Obstetrics and Gynecology, finds 97 percent of physicians surveyed say they have encountered patients wanting an abortion while only 14 percent of doctors are willing to do an abortion. That’s lower than the 22 percent of doctors who said they would do an abortion in the last poll, from 2008.
Women were much more likely than male doctors to say they would do an abortion (18.6 percent v. 10.6 percent); doctors aged 26-35 and 56-65 were more likely to say they would do abortions compared to those 36-45 and 46-55; and physicians in urban areas were more likely to say they would do an abortion compared with doctors in smaller cities and rural settings. Meanwhile, doctors in the Northeast or West are more likely to say they would do an abortion versus those in the South or Midwest.
Some 40.2 percent of Jewish doctors say yes to doing an abortion compared to 1.2 percent of Evangelical Protestants, 9 percent of Roman Catholics or Eastern Orthodox, 10.1 percent of Non-Evangelical Protestants, 20 percent of Hindus, and 26.5 percent of doctors who said they had no religious affiliation.
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