Our History

Since its founding, Medical Students for Choice has been a student-driven organization. We depend on passionate student leaders to further our mission. Student Leaders are the foundation of the organization and are integral to the success of MSFC: assessing campus needs, organizing fellow students around these needs, filling the gaps in curriculum through educational events, promoting MSFC opportunities to classmates, and working with administrators to officially add abortion and family planning to the medical school curriculum.

As a student leader, you are part of an international organization with over 13,000 members.

Our History

Medical Students for Choice was founded in 1993 by a small group of student activists determined to make abortion training available at their medical schools. Violence against abortion providers was rising and medical students received a grotesque anti-choice propaganda mailing. In light of this, Jody Steinauer, a medical student at University of California, San Francisco, and her colleagues realized that they were not learning about abortion in their medical schools. They formed MSFC chapters at three medical schools with the goal of destigmatizing abortion care in the medical community and fighting for education for new doctors.

While abortion has always been a central part of MSFC’s mission, overcoming reproductive oppression in all its forms also means a commitment to supporting justice movements of all kinds. We cannot achieve reproductive freedom without true freedom and liberation for all people. Read our values statement here to learn more.

In the 28 years since its inception, Medical Students for Choice has spread to more than ¾ of the medical school campuses in North America and is active at schools in 27 countries. MSFC works to destigmatize abortion provision among medical students and residents, and to persuade medical schools and residency programs to advocate for including abortion as a part of a comprehensive reproductive health services curriculum.

We have educated thousands of students, made curriculum changes on 100 campuses, and have made major inroads in changing the culture of the medical community around abortion care. MSFC alumni have entered the medical world as abortion providers and pro-choice physicians, serving as mentors and advocates for the continuing work of MSFC student activists. The high caliber of MSFC members’ extracurricular education and activism is now well-known and a vital part of the international family planning community.