Planned Parenthood selects doctor as its next president
Planned Parenthood, under fire from conservatives in Washington and state capitols, chose Leana Wen, an emergency room doctor whose family fled China when she was a child, as its next president Wednesday, picking a woman who won praise for her steadying hand as Baltimore’s health commissioner during the city’s convulsive protests in 2015.
Wen, 35, grew up poor in Compton, Calif., after her family left China following the Tiananmen Square massacre just before her eighth birthday. She relied on Medicaid as a child, and in nearly four years in Baltimore has drawn acclaim for working with corporations and churches to close racial disparities in health care and sharply reducing infant mortality. She has also pushed back aggressively on the Trump administration’s cuts to health care.
She will take over Planned Parenthood’s leadership at a particularly fraught time. While Americans overwhelmingly support the organization, its Republican critics are pushing to cut its funding and eviscerate or overturn Roe v. Wade, and the Supreme Court is poised to tilt further right as critical cases on women’s health advance through the courts.
Earlier this year, Baltimore sued the Trump administration for cutting teen pregnancy prevention funds, which resulted in a federal judge ordering $5 million in grant funding to be restored to two of the city’s programs. Wen fought to preserve Title X funding for the city’s health clinics for lowincome women, and is leading a lawsuit that accuses the administration of intentionally and unlawfully sabotaging the Affordable Care Act.
“Anyone who has worked with Dr. Wen knows that when it comes to protecting her patients, she doesn’t back down from a fight,” said Rep. Elijah Cummings, D-Md., for whom Wen has said she named her son. “In Baltimore, she has expanded care, found solutions around obstacles, and, most important of all, saved lives. While Baltimore is losing its ‘Doctor for the City,’ Planned Parenthood is gaining a powerful new advocate.”
The organization’s last president, Cecile Richards, came from a more political background, as a former Democratic staff member on Capitol Hill and the daughter of former Texas governor Ann Richards.
Planned Parenthood has been in the cross hairs of Republicancontrolled Washington over the last two years, with congressional leaders attempting to strip the reimbursements it receives from Medicaid for serving poor women. States such as Texas have gone further, banning Planned Parenthood from receiving state funds, which resulted in the closing of dozens of clinics and reductions in prenatal care, cancer screenings and birth control.
But the Trump era has also rallied a base of support for Planned Parenthood; the organization said it has 2 million new members in the last two years, for a total of 12 million.