Access to Care: A Mission for Community Health Centers

Genevieve Plaster, M.A., Rebecca Gonzales | October 27, 2015.

In response to the Planned Parenthood scandal involving late-term abortions and harvesting fetal tissue from aborted babies, some are clinging to the claim that women, especially low-income women living in medically underserved areas, rely on the organization as their only healthcare provider. Further scrutiny has revealed that low-cost, publicly-funded health centers outnumber Planned Parenthood facilities 20 to one nationwide, care for 23 million Americans, and even provide more health services.

Aside from the sheer number of the combined sum of 13,000+ Federally Qualified Health Center (FQHC) service sites and Rural Health Clinics (RHCs), two aspects of these centers distinguish them and their mission: transportation assistance and accessible locations.

Good News for Pregnant Moms Diagnosed with Cancer, and Good News for their Unborn Babies

Donna Harrison, M.D. | October 20, 2015.

Separation of a mother and her unborn child is tragically sometimes necessary to save the life of the mother. But the number of conditions which truly threaten the mother’s life, and which require a life-saving separation of the mother and her baby are vanishingly small. A new study by Amant and colleagues, entitled “Pediatric Outcome after Maternal Cancer Diagnosed during Pregnancy,” brings tremendous hope to pregnant women who have courageously carried their unborn children to birth, despite the need for chemotherapy or radiation therapy. And the successful outcome of these children exposed in utero to radiation, chemotherapy or a combination of both is reassuring to pregnant women who no longer need be told outdated information that they must abort their children or else risk compromising their own care or their child’s life.

A Mother’s Love and the Continuity of Knowing

Charlotte Lozier Institute | October 19, 2015.

A few years ago we received a request from a family, whose baby had been a patient in our NICU, to speak with the neonatologist who had cared for their child. I remembered the name vaguely, but was unclear about the circumstances of the encounter, so I had to go way back into the database to find the record.

Turns out that the patient was a little boy who had been born extremely premature, and a patient for less than 24 hours before he died. As I recall, those had been some very long hours. He had been born at one hospital, where I was on call, and then transferred to a higher level hospital, where I just happened to be on call the following night. Mom was terribly sick, and too unstable to transfer along with her baby, although the father and some other family members were able to follow the baby to the new location.

Charlotte Lozier Institute’s Legal and Medical Scholars Testify in Support of Ohio’s Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act

Sheila Page, D.O., David Prentice, Ph.D., Anna Higgins, J.D. | October 15, 2015.

This Tuesday, the Ohio House Committee on Community and Family Advancement held a hearing on SB 127, the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act. Charlotte Lozier Institute (CLI) associate scholars Anna Higgins, J.D., an attorney and legal researcher, and Sheila Page, D.O., an osteopathic physician, testified in support of these bills. CLI welcomed both women as recent additions to the associate scholar team in September.

On Wednesday, Anna Higgins also testified in support of SB 214, a bill that would defund Planned Parenthood by way of “ensur[ing] state/certain federal funds [are] not used for nontherapeutic abortions.”

Care Net Celebrates 40 Years of “Compassion, Hope and Help”

Moira Gaul, M.P.H. | October 6, 2015.

Last month Care Net, a network of over 1,100 life-affirming pregnancy help centers, celebrated its 40-year anniversary at its annual national conference held in San Diego. The mood was jubilant as Care Net recognized the four decades of inspired “compassion, hope and help” members groups have offered to women and men facing challenging pregnancy decisions.

New Video Celebrates Patient’s Recovery from Blood Cancer after Adult Stem Cell Transplant

Charlotte Lozier Institute | October 5, 2015.

On Monday, the Charlotte Lozier Institute released a new video which tells the story of 67-year-old Bill Bourland, who was diagnosed with a life-threatening blood cancer called Myelodysplastic Syndromes (MDS). Thanks to his wife’s determination, a fortuitous meeting with a neighbor, a doctor experienced with adult stem cell treatment, and the generosity of his brother, Bill has received a second chance at life with a clean bill of health.