Lori Freedman, PhD, MA

Visiting Scholar
Bixby Center for Global Reproductive Health

Email: freedmanl@obgyn.ucsf.edu

Biosketch:

Lori Freedman, PhD, is a visiting scholar at the Bixby Center for Global Reproductive Health.  She worked with the Ryan Program from 2005-2008 on her dissertation research about abortion care in the U.S.  A qualitative study, her dissertation addresses the way that abortion politics impact medical practice.  Namely, the work focuses on structural, cultural, and social-psychological challenges to integrating abortion into physician practice.  Lori’s interest in reproductive health care research was born at San Francisco General Hospital (1998) when she worked as a research assistant for several contraception related studies. Later, for her MA research (2001) conducted an ethnographic study of a hospital abortion clinic.  As a visiting scholar at the Bixby Center, Lori is working to publish her dissertation as a book and embark on a new study about reproductive health care in religiously-affiliated health care institutions. Her future research will investigate how institutional conscience clauses and distinct standards of care in these institutions affect patient health and welfare.

Areas of Interest:

• Organization of abortion care in the U.S.
• Social-psychological issues in abortion training and provision
• Medical ethics and the use of conscience clauses
• Religiously-affiliated health care
• Standards of care in reproductive health

Publications on PubMed


Updated January 2009