Leana Wen, the former CEO of Planned Parenthood and Planned Parenthood Action of America recently revealed via Twitter that she had been abruptly terminated. Wen was the CEO of Planned Parenthood for less than a year, and her firing came shortly after the entire 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the Trump administration’s defunding of Planned Parenthood in a 7-4 decision.
However, Wen has stated that Planned Parenthood essentially fired her for wanting to push abortion along with emphasizing other women’s healthcare services. She makes it rather clear that the organization wanted her primary focus to be on pushing abortion.
Wen did say in a tweet that she was engaged in good faith negotiations with Planned Parenthood about leaving the organization, when she was unexpectedly fired. So far, Planned Parenthood has not denied her claim. Wen was the organization’s first doctor to hold the position in over fifty years. She later released a statement with more details about her termination, saying her and Planned Parenthood parted ways over “philosophical differences.” Wen also made clear her belief that abortion should not be a political issue but that Planned Parenthood’s leadership fundamentally disagreed.
Even major left-leaning news organizations agree Wen parted ways with Planned Parenthood because the organization’s radical pro abortion stance.
NPR’s Sarah McCammon reported that “Planned Parenthood employees have noted concerns about Wen’s leadership style and questioned whether she was equipped to lead the organization through such a turbulent period. Additionally, they were increasingly uneasy about her ability to execute on the advocacy that the board sees as imperative to the group’s mission.”
CBS News reported that “Planned Parenthood announced…. it had removed its president, Dr. Leana Wen, effectively immediately, following months of conflict with the board over the direction of the organization.”
According to TIME, “Wen and Planned Parenthood had been in discussions over leadership issues for six of the roughly eight months she served as president.”
According to Politico:
Deposed Planned Parenthood chief Leana Wen vowed in a memo before taking her post that she would treat abortion “as the fight of our time,” calling into question her claim that she was ousted as CEO last week for seeking to depoliticize Planned Parenthood’s signature issue.
“We are facing [the] real probability that 1/3 of women of reproductive age—25 million—could be living in states that ban or criminalize abortion,” Wen wrote in an October 2018 internal memo where she laid out her agenda. “[W]e need to fight with everything we have.”
The memo was given to POLITICO by a former Planned Parenthood official.
Wen also laid out secondary priorities: Expanding access to health care and addressing health care inequality. Wen has said that Planned Parenthood’s leadership team signed off on her goal of shifting the organization toward a broader health care mission.
Nonetheless, Wen has portrayed her departure as driven by being insufficiently pro-abortion.
It’s clear that Planned Parenthood is in a state of turmoil. Evidently, Leana Wen didn’t push abortion as heavily and politically as the board of Planned Parenthood wanted, so they fired her. Leana Wen’s firing is perhaps the largest example that Planned Parenthood does not care about women, or women’s healthcare services, but instead are committed to pushing abortion as their primary agenda.
