Abortion restrictions associated with lower female medical school applicant numbers

Abortion restrictions associated with lower female medical school applicant numbers Sadie Harley Scientific Editor Robert Egan Associate Editor States with restrictive abortion policies saw slower growth in the proportion of female medical school applicants following the 2022 reversal of Roe v. Wade, according to a new study published in the open-access journal PLOS Global Public Health by Amrit Kirpalani of Western University, Canada, and colleagues. Following the Supreme Court's 2022 decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization, which overturned federal abortion protections, U.S. states enacted widely divergent reproductive health policies. Some states enacted total or near-total abortion bans; others codified or expanded abortion access. In the new study, researchers analyzed publicly available data from the Association of American Medical Colleges covering 44 U.S. states and Washington, D.C., from 2018 to 2025. States were classified as either Expanded/Protected or Hostile/Not Protected based on their abortion policies. Nationally, the proportion of female medical school applicants increased by 5.3 percentage points over the study period. States with and without abortion protections had similar trajectories before 2022. However, after 2022, the growth in female applicants was significantly slower in Hostile/Not Protected states than in Expanded/Protected states—a difference of 0.58 percentage points per year, corresponding to approximately 71 fewer female applicants per year than would have been expected. No difference was seen in the proportion of women who enrolled in medical school nationally after 2022, suggesting that women may be redirecting their applications toward states with protective policies rather than abandoning medical careers altogether. "These findings suggest that restrictive reproductive policies may be subtly reshaping women's professional pathways even at the earliest stages of the physician workforce pipeline," the authors write. "Although absolute differences remain modest, sustained disparities in application growth could have long-term implications for gender equity and health care access, particularly in states already facing physician shortages." The authors add, "In the years since Roe v. Wade was overturned, women have continued to apply to medical school in growing numbers—but that growth has slowed noticeably in states with abortion restrictions. Trends like this tend to compound over time, and could meaningfully reshape who practices medicine, and where." Publication details Gilchrist JM, et al. Abortion restrictions and female medical school applicants: A retrospective study, PLOS Global Public Health (2026). DOI: 10.1371/journal.pgph.0006436 Journal information: PLOS Global Public Health Provided by Public Library of Science