Baltimore Health Commissioner Dr. Leana Wen Named Head Of Planned Parenthood

Baltimore Health Commissioner Dr. Leana Wen Named Head Of Planned Parenthood

Baltimore health commissioner Dr. Leana Wen has been named the new head of Planned Parenthood Federation of America. Growing up poor in California as a Chinese refugee, Dr. Wen, her little sister and mother received ongoing health care from Planned Parenthood.

Wen is a prodigy who enrolled at Cal State University at age 13, graduating at 18 with a degree in biochemistry. She attended Washington University in St. Louis for medical school and was a fellow at Harvard. Dr. Wen also studied public health at Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar.

Before taking the health commissioner position in Baltimore, Dr. Wen forked as an emergency room doctor at George Washington University, where she was also a professor.

Dr. Wen says she is leaving a job she loves in Baltimore because of growing attacks by the Trump administration and other conservatives on Planned Parenthood and women’s reproductive health rights.

“I see how the single, biggest health catastrophe of our times is the threat to women’s health,” Wen said. “I am deeply troubled by how women’s health issues are singled out, stigmatized and attacked.”

Planned Parenthood’s need for an articulate and fierce public voice is filled by the outspoken commissioner who is widely known for her newspaper op-eds and TV appearances, writes The Baltimore Sun.