The male-dominated abortion industry?

Recently, a question was posed on our facebook page: are abortionists more likely than the general population of doctors to be male?

Male abortionists in the news (such as Kermit Gosnell, pictured) may cause us to perceive the abortion industry as male-dominated.

To answer this question, we look to two sources. First, the Kaiser Family Foundation gives us the number of female and male physicians in each state. Second, AbortionDocs.org has the most comprehensive available listing of known abortionists.

The answer to our reader’s question is no. As it turns out, male abortionists do indeed outnumber their female counterparts, but the disparity is not greater than it is for the general population of doctors. 67% of all doctors are male, as are 57% of abortionists. The ten-point difference is likely a statistical fluke; we only have the names of 783 abortionists, versus the nearly 900,000 physicians tracked by Kaiser. Alternatively, the difference may be partially explained by abortion lobby efforts to recruit women to the trade.

Interestingly, though, the extent to which the abortion industry is male-dominated varies drastically depending upon where you live.

In several low-abortion states—Arkansas, Mississippi, Rhode Island, South Dakota, Tennessee, West Virginia, and Wyoming—all known abortionists are male. In several others (most notably Indiana, Nevada, Texas, and Virginia), men are a considerably larger percentage of abortionists than of all physicians. What makes up for it? In 14 states, women constitute the majority of doctors committing abortions.

I’m interested to hear if these regional differences have any impact on your pro-life advocacy. Please let us know your thoughts in the comments.

Full data below: