Medical students for choice: creating tomorrow's abortion providers.

In the spring of 1993, tens of thousands of US medical students received an offensive pamphlet in their mailboxes with the following “joke”: “Q: What would you do if you were in a room with Hitler, Mussolini and an abortionist and you had a gun with only two bullets? A: Shoot the abortionist twice.” Ironically, this mailing was the single most influential factor leading to the creation of Medical Students for Choice (MSFC). At the time, there were few residencies training their residents to provide abortions and even fever medical schools educating their students on comprehensive women's reproductive health care [1,2]. Additionally, abortion providers were on the decline, and fewer women had access to comprehensive reproductive health care [3]. The group was founded in 1993 as a solution to the dramatic decline in the number of abortion providers. Seventeen years later, MSFC has grown to be an international organization with more than 10,000 members in seven countries. MSFC is a strong presence at most medical schools in the United States and Canada and, in recent years, has begun to support medical students organizing around abortion education at schools in the UK, Ireland, Israel, the Dominican Republic, and Lebanon. The expansion of medical student interest in learning about abortion and family planning worldwide demonstrated by these new chapters is a growing strategic priority for MSFC.