Nursing Students for Choice (NSFC) is a national grassroots organization dedicated to advancing and securing reproductive health and justice for all through advocacy, activism, provider education and training. NSFC welcomes any undergraduate, graduate, or doctoral level nursing student who is interested in ensuring that nurses are fully trained to meet the reproductive health care needs of women and their families.
Nurses are vital clinicians in reproductive healthcare. We provide much of the pregnancy testing, birth control counseling, options counseling, and post procedure care that affect women daily. We counsel women both formally and informally in emergency rooms, in provider’s offices, and in campus clinics. We are also increasingly providers of abortion services. Already 14 states allow Nurse Practitioners (NP) and Certified Nurse Midwives (CNM) to be surgical and medical abortion providers. Significantly, many NPs work in rural areas, where they help fill the rural healthcare and abortion provider gaps successfully.
NSFC’s national goals are rooted in the belief that nursing students across the country can be inspired to join our cause with organizational support from current NSFC student leaders. Utilizing the skills of nurses and improving their educations will improve the total healthcare experience of patients nationwide.
The founders of the current national NSFC attended two nursing schools: Winona State University and Oregon Health Sciences University. NSFC on the Winona State University campus in Winona, Minnesota was founded in 2006 by three nursing students who wanted to be involved in a pro-choice student club that was geared directly to nurses and which would work to bring awareness of pro-choice issues to the campus and surrounding community. NSFC at WSU has held panel discussions, participated in demonstrations, attended pro-choice lobby days and raised money for the local family planning clinic through “Rock for Choice” concerts and the women’s resource center.
NSFC at OHSU has existed since 2005. It was started by one student as a way to supplement missing reproductive health curriculum. NSFC at OHSU has radically changed this situation: Members serve as patient advocates in our Center for Women’s Health during IUD placements, sterilization (Essure) procedures, follow up appointments for abnormal yearly screening for women and abortions. We hold information sessions on options counseling, sexuality and abortion care. We recently taught every undergraduate at the school how to teach their patients to properly use a condom. NSFC collaborates with Medical Students for Choice (MSFC) on campus to hold a reproductive health choices elective to fill in curriculum gaps. We have joined with Sexual Minorities Youth Resource Center (SMYRC) to educate students about transgender sexuality issues. Because Oregon allows Nurse Practitioners and Nurse Midwives the opportunity to provide abortions, we are also currently seeking clinical and training placement options for students who are furthering their nursing education.