Spotlight on....

October 30, 2012

In an interview with Ohio Public Radio, former Leadership Training Initiative Fellow Lisa Perriera, MD, MPH, disputed attempts by anti-abortion extremists to dismiss rape, incest, and the life of the woman as legitimate reasons to have an abortion. The extremists claim that no abortions in Ohio in the last year were performed in cases of rape or a danger to the woman's life, citing Ohio's State Health Department records.

Declared Dr. Perriera, "I have done abortions for patients that have been raped in the past year. I have certainly done abortions for women who have had a threat to maternal life in the past year."

The extremists have called for more detailed abortion reporting in Ohio, an attempt Dr. Perriera sees as another way to place the government between women and the medical care they need. She told the Ohio Public Radio reporter:

"I'm tired of having legislators tell me how I can practice medicine. Last I checked, most of them ... don't sit in the office with me when I have to tell a woman that she has a baby with a fetal anomaly and that baby won't survive but because she has Medicaid, she has to pay for her own abortion or carry that pregnancy to term because of laws that lawmakers have made. They don't have to sit in that room and talk to that woman, but I do and it's exhausting."

October 25, 2012

This week, the Providence Phoenix profiled PRCH board member and Adolescent Reproductive and Sexual Health Education Project faculty member Michelle Forcier, MD, MPH, and her work with transgender and gender-questioning children for its cover story, "Born in the Wrong Body." Dr. Forcier, a pediatrician and adolescent medicine specialist, discussed her approach to her work, describing how she asks all her new patients if they're a boy, girl, or "in between": "I ask everybody this question, because I make no assumptions about anyone.... I ask, and that opens the door for [kids] to talk more about where [they're] coming from." Read the rest of the article.

October 25, 2012

Former Leadership Training Academy Fellow Kathleen Morrell, MD, was interviewed for German news channel RTL's Nachtjournal, a late-night news program broadcast throughout the European Union. Dr. Morrell noted that recent comments made by anti-choice legislators are an indication that they consider "their ideological beliefs...[to be] more important than the safety of my patients and the women of this country." Watch the interview. [In German. The segment begins at 13:27; Dr. Morrell appears at 15:50.]

October 22, 2012

In a Bay Area Reporter article addressing the lack of training on lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender health issues in medical schools, Adolescent Reproductive and Sexual Health Education Project faculty member Abbas Hyderi, MD, MPH, pointed to the role played by medical school accreditation requirements. Dr. Hyderi noted: "As educators we are held to our accreditation bodies. In none of the agencies is there a single reference to gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender."