Republican Wisconsin state Sen. Andre Jacque introduced a bill that, if passed, would put the University of Wisconsin-Madison OB-GYN residency program’s national accreditation at risk. The bill, which was introduced in April as AB 206, would ban faculty from training their resident physicians in abortion care.
The Journal-Sentinel reports:
Jacque’s bill, introduced in April, would prohibit UW-Madison employees from performing abortions as well as training others or receiving training in performing abortions anywhere other than a hospital. Since the training requires participating in abortions and government dollars can’t be used to facilitate abortions, the training can’t take place at the university hospital. That would leave nowhere for UW-Madison residents to obtain it. They would have to join another residency program if they wanted to become a certified OB-GYN.
If passed into law, this would exacerbate the current OB-GYN shortage in the state, according to local medical groups. Calvin Bruce, a retired family doctor, testified on the behalf of the Wisconsin Academy of Family Physicians:
Our academy is neither pro-choice nor pro-life. We have members who have strongly held beliefs on both sides of that issue. We are strongly pro-patient. And we strongly oppose AB206 on workforce, medical and academic grounds.
You would not dictate to the cardiac surgeons how they should teach bypass surgery. Nor to the neurosurgeons how they should teach brain surgery. Does it make sense to presume you know better than obstetricians how to teach their craft?