VICTOR JOECKS: Planned Parenthood terminates president for not focusing on abortion

Planned Parenthood tries to portray itself as providing essential health care for women, with abortion just one of its many services. Last week, it fired its president for believing that propaganda.

Planned Parenthood says that abortions are just 3 percent of its services. That statistic makes it sound like abortion isn’t the organization’s primary focus. It’s misleading, since it counts things that are part of obtaining an abortion, like a pregnancy test, as separate procedures.

Republicans oppose sending money to Planned Parenthood because it’s the country’s largest abortion mill. It killed 332,000 babies last year. That’s over 900 abortions a day. But its defenders, including Democratic presidential candidates, object, focusing on the other services Planned Parenthood offers.

“2.5 million patients choose Planned Parenthood every year, including roughly 1 million in California,” Sen. Kamala Harris tweeted in 2017. “Cutting off funding would leave women with less access to affordable care.”

“Planned Parenthood helps women and individuals get the health care they need — especially preventive services like cancer screenings, mammograms, checkups, and contraception,” former Vice President Joe Biden tweeted last month.

Eight months ago, Planned Parenthood hired Dr. Leana Wen as its new president. Wen believed Planned Parenthood’s spin — that its priority wasn’t just health care as a euphemism for abortion.

Last week, Wen wrote that while interviewing with the search committee, “I posed this question: Did they see Planned Parenthood as an advocacy organization first, with medical services that are necessary to strengthen its impact, or did they see Planned Parenthood as a health care organization first, with advocacy as a necessary vehicle to protect rights and access?”

Wen believed the later. After she was hired, Wen launched programs “to expand maternal health care, mental health services and substance addiction prevention and treatment.” She never wavered on her support of abortion. This month alone, she has tweeted, “Our bodies are our own — if they are not, we cannot be truly free or equal” and “abortion is healthcare.”

But even vocal support for dismembering babies in their mothers’ wombs didn’t satisfy Planned Parenthood’s board. Turns out what Planned Parenthood really cares about is abortion.

“I am leaving the organization sooner than I’d hoped because of philosophical differences about the direction and future of Planned Parenthood,” Wen wrote. “The new board leadership has determined that the priority of Planned Parenthood moving forward is to double down on abortion rights advocacy.”

That was the happy spin. She previously huffed that she “just learned that the Planned Parenthood board ended my employment at a secret meeting.”

Their body, their choice. Right?

At least this termination didn’t involve an abortionist puncturing someone’s skull with a pair of scissors and vacuuming out their brains. That’s what happens in a dilation and extraction abortion. Planned Parenthood wants to spend more of its organization’s energy making sure that barbaric procedure remains legal.

This whole episode is a reminder of how much of the abortion industry depends on doublespeak to hide the reality of abortion.

“Your body deserves high-quality health care. And so does every body,” a recent tweet from Planned Parenthood reads.

Irony is dead. Yes, every body deserves high-quality health care. That includes the body inside a mother’s womb that Planned Parenthood wants its employees to be able to rip from limb to limb.

Publicly, Planned Parenthood makes the case that it cares about more than abortion. Wen learned the hard way how untrue that is.

Victor Joecks’ column appears in the Opinion section each Sunday, Wednesday and Friday. Listen to him discuss his columns each Monday at 10 a.m. with Kevin Wall on 790 Talk Now. Contact him at vjoecks@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-4698. Follow @victorjoecks on Twitter.