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In a NowThis Presidential Forum, a doctor who studied OB-GYN at the University of Texas Southwestern in Dallas shared this week that she was prevented from receiving the proper training and education in family planning, counseling, and performing abortions while in school due to her state’s conservative stance on abortion.
Speaking to President Joe Biden, Dr. Danielle Mathisen explained the situation, noting that several Texas schools are failing to teach proper abortion care to medical students “out of fear that that’s somehow aiding and abetting achieving an abortion.”
She added that as a result, she and her peers created an off-campus after-hours club that allowed them to study the curriculum that wasn’t formally offered through their university. They did this by practicing abortion procedures on a papaya.
Biden was shocked to hear about the restrictions faced by students seeking such medical training, and how they were compensating. “I didn’t realize that was the case,” Biden said.
He continued: “I admire the heck out of you for being willing to get together with other students and teach yourself. I’m curious, how’d you do that?”
“A papaya is a very good representation of a uterus, and you can practice on the papaya fruit,” Mathisen responded, noting that she and her colleagues were taught by an outside physician who wasn’t affiliated with the university.
According to the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education, OB-GYN residency programs are required to train students in abortions. If located in states where abortions are illegal, programs have to provide the training somewhere else, the Associated Press reported.
Even before SCOTUS overturned the landmark case, doctors and students worried that in states where abortion was limited or banned, residents would be tempted to choose programs in more liberal states, resulting in a shortage of OB-GYN doctors in conservative states.
So in fear of needing to know the procedure but not having the right tools, many students have taken to practicing on papayas.
“I can visualize it even though it’s just a fruit,” Oyebola Oyewole told The Guardian while a medical student in Atlanta in 2017. “I’m hoping to become a pediatrician but I want to be able to provide this service if a teen needed it and can’t get it anywhere else.”
According to NorthJersey.com, many students even in states like New Jersey (where abortion is legal) have experienced the “papaya workshop,” hosted by chapters of Medical Students for Choice. While unofficial and voluntary, this demonstration of abortion techniques on a tropical fruit is often the only experience some students will have access to when it comes to abortion care.
Here’s how the method works:
Click here to learn more about the Papaya Method and for a guide on how it is taught.
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