News & events 
What’s new at ANSIRH
What’s new at ANSIRHWhat’s new at ANSIRH
New report co-authored by Tracy Weitz featured in LA Times article | Lori Freedman releases book on obstacles to providing abortion | Joffe publishes Dispatches from the Abortion Wars | HWPP trainee and research coordinators meet | Providing Abortion Care: A Professional Toolkit released
Tracy Weitz coauthors Health Care Refusals:
Undermining Quality Care for Women
Institutions that impose ideological restrictions on health care delivery have assumed increasing control of hospitals and managed care systems in the United States. These organizations often impose limitations on the health care the clinicians in their system can provide. At the same time, broad statutory refusal clauses allowing health care personnel to refuse to provide critical information and services based on their personal beliefs also are proliferating. Until now, no rigorous analysis had been conducted of how these denials of care affect the health of women, particularly low-income women whose choice of health providers is often limited.
Health Care Refusals: Undermining Quality Care for Women now provides some answers to that question. This new publication, co-authored by Susan Berke Fogel of the National Health Law Program (NHeLP) and ANSIRH Director Tracy Weitz, investigates and documents whether and to what extent these denials conflict with professionally developed, accepted medical standards of care, and analyzes the potential health consequences to patients. This analysis provides a new framework for evaluating refusal clauses and denials of care, hospital mergers, and other transactions when they conflict with accepted and expected medical practice.
Read the LA Times coverage, other coverage, and more on the issue on the ANSIRH site.
Lori Freedman releases new book and study on obstacles to providing abortion
Dr. Lori Freedman, ANSIRH Medical Sociologist (front right), reviewing work with Kate Cosby Cockrill, MPH, ANSIRH Research Analyst.
ANSIRH Medical Sociologist Dr. Lori Freedman has published a new book, Willing and Unable: Doctors’ Constraints in Abortion Care, which explores the social world where abortion politics and mainstream medicine collide. Freedman interviewed physicians of obstetrics and gynecology around the United States to find out why physicians rarely integrate abortion into their medical practice. While abortion stigma, violence, and political contention provide some explanation, her findings demonstrate that willing physicians are further encumbered by a variety of barriers within their practice environments.
Drawing from 40 in-depth interviews, the book presents a challenge to a commonly held assumption that physicians decide whether or not to provide abortion based on personal ideology. Instead, Freedman found that the majority of physicians she interviewed were unable to provide abortions because of formal and informal policies imposed by their private group practices, employers and hospitals, as well as the strain that doing so might put on relationships with superiors and coworkers. Restrictions on abortion provision sometimes were made explicit when new physicians interviewed for a job, but sometimes became apparent only after they had joined a practice or institution.
The book follows a study on the same topic that Freedman co-authored with Uta Landy, Philip Darney and Jody Steinauer, “Obstacles to the Integration of Abortion Into Obstetrics and Gynecology Practice.” The study was published online by the Guttmacher Institute in May 2010, and will appear in Guttmacher’s September 2010 issue of Perspectives on Sexual and Reproductive Health. The study was also featured in a June 1, 2010 article by Carol King that ran in Ms. blog and in a June 13 interview with Dr. Friedman by Amanda Marcotte of RHrealitycheck.org. (The interview runs from minutes 7-19.)
Carole Joffe publishes Dispatches from the Abortion Wars
Updates: ARHP just announced that Dr. Joffe will be honored at Reproductive Health ’10 with the Irvin M. Cushner Lectureship, in recognition of her distinguished career dedicated to reproductive health scholarship, teaching, publishing, and activism. Dr. Joffe also published Health-care reform and abortion services: the damage is already done to future coverage in the March 17 issue of the Washington Post and was recently interviewed by Rose Aguilar of KALW-FM and by Lynn Harris of Salon.
On January 22, 2010, America will celebrate the 37th anniversary of Roe v. Wade. Yet, nearly four decades after that landmark decision, access to quality abortion care remains exceptionally difficult to obtain. In Dispatches from the Abortion Wars: The Costs of Fanaticism to Doctors, Patients, and the Rest of Us, ANSIRH Visiting Scholar Dr. Carole Joffe illuminates the barriers by exploring the stigma surrounding abortion, the professional and physical risks for practicing medical professionals, and the unethical actions taken by the religious and political right in an attempt to abolish a woman’s right to a safe and legal abortion.
Dispatches from the Abortion Wars combines research, firsthand accounts, history, and current events, to deliver an extensive account of the impediments to abortion care in America. Joffe spends time with the doctors, patients, and advocates caught up in the abortion battle. She takes an in-depth look at the precarious position of doctors and clinic staff members, and explores the risks they must take on in order to provide abortion services. Dispatches From the Abortion Wars also features an up-to-date introduction that reflects upon the aftermath of Dr. George Tiller’s murder, and includes a section on his work, and a post-script about his legacy. Read the publisher’s release...
HWPP trainee and research coordinator meeting
“It was great seeing everyone, putting faces to voices. It is an honor being in this first group of APC providers.”
Twenty four HWPP project trainees and four research coordinators met in Oakland on November 2, 2009 for a day-long meeting to meet each other, share program information, updates on curriculum, the latest evaluation data, and celebrate their work as abortion providers. The day was also an important time for trainees to share their experiences about becoming abortion providers. Each shared story made it clear that providing patient-centered compassionate abortion care is a goal all our trainees share.
Along with Dr. Diana Taylor (not shown), Dr. Amy Levi, Clinical Education Consultant for the HWPP Project, led a discussion about the Project’s curriculum and evaluation protocols.
The day began with a welcome from Tracy Weitz, ANSIRH Director; an overview of the HWPP Project from Molly Battistelli, HWPP Director; an update on research from Kristin Nobel, HWPP Evaluator; and an explanation of goals for policy change in California from Erin Schultz, HWPP Law and Policy Analyst. Diana Taylor, Director of Research and Evaluation, and Amy Levi, Clinical Education Consultant, then led a discussion about the Project’s curriculum and evaluation protocols. Afternoon sessions covered details and best practices of research protocols and data collection and a discussion among the trainees of their personal and emotional reactions as HWPP Project participants. Read more about the HWPP Project.
Providing Abortion Care: A Professional Toolkit released
The long-awaited APC Toolkit—Providing Abortion Care: A Professional Toolkit for Nurse-Midwives, Nurse Practitioners, and Physician Assistants—informs, supports, and catalyzes efforts to promote the provision of abortion by certified nurse-midwives, nurse practitioners, and physician assistants.
The Toolkit includes essential information and statistics about:
- Abortion and access to abortion
- Professional regulation, competencies, and responsibilities
- The roles of state and national professional organizations and state licensing boards
The Toolkit helps clinicians compile crucial evidence and documentation to support the integration of early abortion care by guiding clinicians in the development of a professional portfolio which documents:
- Basic and abortion-specialty education, knowledge, and training
- Clinical and professional standards used in providing safe care
It is available in both a web-based and pdf format. Learn more...
See also previous announcements and notes on what’s new in the field of reproductive health and rights.
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Photos this page ©2009
Jana Carrey Photography