When a woman needs care for anything from a cold to contraception, nurses are an immediate point of contact. Whether counseling on a health concern, providing a flu vaccination or making referrals to additional resources and care, nurses are often the first and last clinicians to help a woman. As with other common health concerns, a woman may turn to a nurse for advice and support about an unintended pregnancy.  A nurse’s reaction to an unintended pregnancy can dramatically shape a woman’s experience as she seeks abortion care.  The difference between a biased or incomplete response and one that is compassionate and comprehensive is crucial for women, especially those with few outlets to obtain care they need.

What if nurses routinely prepared to respond to unintended pregnancies in professionally responsible way?  What if nurses were uniformly trained to give these patients unbiased reproductive options information and assistance simply as part of their education?

AAP believes that nurses play a critical role in providing and connecting women to safe abortion care. AAP’s work with nursing programs gives students the resources they need to excel in this role.  Our goal is to institutionalize needed training and education into graduate and undergraduate nursing programs across the U.S.  Guided by the Reproductive Options Education (ROE) Consortium, a group of leading nursing faculty, we provide education programs with tools for faculty to easily integrate reproductive options education and counseling into curricula.  We are currently piloting models that build lasting training partnerships between nursing education and observational/training experiences for students. By establishing sustained opportunities for students, we help new generations of nurses to understand their professional role in abortion care. 

AAP is the only national organization working with frontline providers in nursing specifically on the issue of abortion. Integrating abortion content into nursing education and training is one of the many ways AAP is using innovative solutions to address gaps in abortion access.