Study reveals no mass exodus of OB-GYNs from pro-life states

A new study in JAMA Network Open is pouring cold water on abortion advocates’ claim that Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, the Supreme Court decision that overturned Roe v. Wade, would cause a mass exodus of OB-GYNs from states choosing to pass protections for preborn children.

The study shows a greater increase of OB-GYNs in “abortion ban” states than in “abortion-protective” states. Perhaps this is the main reason why, with few exceptions, the media isn’t talking about it.

The study, published on April 21, 2025, has six authors — none of whom appear to have pro-life affiliations. In fact, study author Caitlin Myers, PhD noted under the “Conflict of Interest Disclosures” that she has “received[ed] personal fees from the Planned Parenthood Federation of America, Center for Reproductive Rights, US Congressional Budget Office, the Urban Institute, and the Society of Family Planning outside the submitted work.”

The authors state that of the 60,085 OB-GYNs in the cohort study, “the number of OBGYNs did not significantly change across policy environments, increasing by 8.3% in states where abortion is banned, 10.5% in states where it is threatened, and 7.7% in states where it is protected after the Dobbs decision” (emphases added).

What this means, they said, is that “Although the Dobbs decision has increased physicians’ concerns about providing reproductive health care, there were no observed disproportionate changes in OBGYN practice location as of 2024.”

Dr. Michael New — Assistant Professor of Practice at The Busch School of Business at The Catholic University of America, a Senior Associate Scholar at the Charlotte Lozier Institute, and a Paige Comstock Cunningham Senior Fellow at Americans United for Life — discussed the study in an article published at National Review.

“All in all, these results are unsurprising,” New stated. “Surveys consistently show that a low percentage of OBGYNs perform abortions. The legal status of abortion would likely have little impact on the decisions of most OBGYNs as to where to move or locate their practice.”

New points out, “The authors obtained data on all practicing OBGYNs from a national health-care registry…. when the authors considered location decisions among recent residency graduates, they found similar trends in states with strong pro-life laws and states where abortion is legal.”

This clearly isn’t the result the authors expected to see, and the study discussion seems to attempt to divert emphasis and attention away from the authors’ results. They write that their analyses “do not speak to the evolution of other aspects of reproductive health care,” such as “quality of care being provided to patients,” and “moral distress felt by practitioners,” as well as “quality of training” for OB-GYN residents, nor do they “comprehensively address how the broader landscape of reproductive health care provision has changed,” including the availability of abortion pills by mail.

However, they conclude that “The percentage of OBGYNs switching policy environments was between 1% and 2% across all 3 policy environments…. Although these findings do not provide insight into changes in the quality of care provided, they suggest that there are no major changes in the supply of OBGYNs associated with the Dobbs decision” (emphasis added).

The study examined data from “January 1, 2018, to September 30, 2024, for all OBGYNs listed in the data files during the study period.”