Abortion is one of the most commonly performed surgical procedures in the United States.
At the same time, the U.S. is facing a critical shortage of abortion providers and abortion services. The future pool of abortion providers is compromised by low levels of abortion training for current medical students. For many women, the combination of legal restrictions, financial limitations, harassment, and the shortage of providers results in significant delays or the inability to access services altogether. Although 44 states currently prohibit non-physicians from performing abortions, many of these states give midlevel providers prescriptive authority. As the range of methods available for therapeutic abortion expands with the development of new technologies such as medical abortion, the role of midlevel providers in abortion service delivery comes into question.