Primary Care Initiative

The Primary Care Initiative (PCI) seeks to secure the professional practice, health care system, and regulatory changes necessary to allow properly trained advanced practice clinicians (i.e. nurse practitioners, physician assistants, and certified nurse midwives) to offer early abortion services. California-based activities include a three-year Health Workforce Pilot Project, through which 60 advanced practice clinicians are receiving training in aspiration abortion at 32 sites. Data will be collected to demonstrate the safety and effectiveness of advanced practice clinicians as providers of early aspiration abortion care.

The PCI, in collaboration with the Abortion Access Project and the National Abortion Federation, has produced an online toolkit: Providing Abortion Care: A Professional Toolkit for Nurse-Midwives, Nurse Practitioners, and Physician Assistants.

For more information on the PCI, see the Advancing New Standards in Reproductive Health (ANSIRH) website.