As a means of continuing to establish Maryland as a reproductive services sanctuary state, the Moore administration is putting more state funding into abortion services and training.

The state is awarding a $10.6 million grant to the University of Maryland, Baltimore to administer the Maryland Abortion Care Clinical Training Program. That initiative expands the number of healthcare professionals with abortion care training and increases racial and ethnic diversity in the workforce.

“Our training will target a major public health problem of abortion care training and abortion care access in our state,” said Dr. Jessica Lee, an associate professor at the University of Maryland School of Medicine and co-principal investigator on the training program. “We will specifically address training clinicians in underserved areas and rural areas in Maryland to help reverse health inequities and to provide reproductive health care services to those in need.”

The Moore administration is also allotting $5 million to increase Medicaid provider reimbursement for abortion and reproductive services.

Moore has pushed to make Maryland a bastion for reproductive health and a place where people in neighboring states can come for abortion care.

Last year, he freed $3.5 million in funding to help train more reproductive healthcare providers that was being held up by the Hogan administration.

“Gov. Wes Moore understands that reproductive freedom is non-negotiable and that access to safe, legal abortion is an essential health care service in this country,” Maryland Department of Health Secretary Laura Herrera Scott said at the time. “We strongly encourage qualified health providers to respond to the request for applications and implement comprehensive training programs that keep abortion care safe and accessible in Maryland.”

Moore also directed the state to buy a two-and-a-half-year stockpile of mifepristone, a drug used in abortions, after federal court cases threatened to ban it.