Abortion advocates are growing increasingly concerned that "not enough competent doctors" are providing abortion services, the May/June issue of California Medicine reports. Currently 84 percent of counties in the U.S. have no abortion facility and fewer physicians trained to perform abortions are graduating from medical school.

A Kaiser Family Foundation report found that half of all abortions are per-formed by people over 50. In addition, a large percentage of abortion providers are "circuit riders" who make their living flying or driving from one abortion facility to another. The article highlights one notorious "circuit rider" who has been charged with second degree murder for a botched abortion that left a mother dead.

The primary reason for the dwindling number of abortion practitioners is that few medical students and residents, even those training in OB/GYN specialties, choose to undergo training in abortion techniques. According to a 1995 study in Family Planning Perspectives, a "majority of OB/GYN residents had no intention of ever performing abortions, and only five percent said they would ever perform them." In 1992 only 12.4 percent of OB/GYN residency programs offered first trimester abortion training, compared with 26.3 percent in 1976. Further, such training is often optional, "which to already-overworked residents may be tantamount to not offering it at all."

A pro-abortion group, Medical Students for Choice with 4,000 members at 100 medical schools, is demanding mandatory abortion training for students and residents.