Wow. This is some defense she’s put on and NYT was willing to print. But I’d guess the editor put tongue in cheek and said, “Sure. OK. Bring it on.”
Wen “left”? I believe, from everything else I’ve read, that she was fired. As the NYT headline of 7.16 reports, “Planned Parenthoo Ousts President.”
And she was fired because she had, in large part, created a culture within her own office which called for her to be treated like royalty.
Planned Parenthood does need to take stock of its mission. But I can’t fathom how one could ever separate politics from the health care of women. Ever.
21
Sorry about your luck. Reason and logic are useless when dealing with neurosis.
6
Goodbye and good riddance. Everything is political now.
4
"... it is not a political issue but a health care one."
PP receives government money, so PP is subject to politics, no matter how the author would like to spin it.
"We need to stop treating those whose views differ from our own with scorn and suspicion, and instead work together to safeguard our health, our rights and our future."
That's a nice sentiment, but when Joe Biden tried to show that he had worked with segregationist Senators, he was attacked as a racist:
'And former Representative John Delaney of Maryland said in a statement: “Evoking an avowed segregationist is not the best way to make the point that we need to work together and is insensitive; we need to learn from history but we also need to be aggressive in dismantling structural racism that exists today.”'
Biden, Recalling ‘Civility’ in Senate, Invokes Two Segregationist Senators
By Katie Glueck
June 19, 2019
New York Times
2
Dr. Wen faced the same problem that rational Democrats and rational Republicans face. There is no place for a rational person or argument in a situation that has been politicized to and by both radical ends of the spectrum. The points she made in the article should resonate with all of us who appreciate freedom of choice in the larger sense of the concept. All health care decisions should be personal. To push one or the direction on the patient, whatever the issue, is to follow in the footsteps of the Nazis and Chinese Communists. Choose your evil, but both are evil. To advocate for full freedom of choice, including a choice with which you don’t agree, is the essence of what America is supposed to be.
18
What a shame to lose a voice of reason. !
9
I accept that abortion is the law of the land, but to call it healthcare is just plain ridiculous. It's the only form of healthcare in which a human being dies 100% of the time.
6
Dr.Wen is right. Abortion is a healthcare issue. Just like gun violence is a public health issue.
20
Dr. Wen seems like a well-intentioned person who naively thought we could all rise above the religious right's unholy crusade to make this country a faux Christian theocracy, before they perish from the earth. They are not concerned with women's and children's health outside their own immediate circle. There is no middle ground with fanatics.
12
Anyone familiar with Holocaust history and Rabbi Chaim Mordechaj Rumkowski knows that choosing between one immoral act and another immoral act within in immoral setting is something no one who isn't in the situation can judge. The same problem exists in the crucifixion of Jesus. It was immoral to kill Jesus and it was immoral for God to have set it up.
Abortion will always be the immoral choice in an immoral society that makes pregnancy and childcare so hard on mothers and where healthcare is not available and the village abandons her when she needs us the most. Until the village stops perpetuating immoral social settings for her, she has no choice but to make immoral choices: either have the child and be stuck with it, have the child and give it away, or end the pregnancy. If we had a more moral society, and not one like the Lodz Ghetto where children are sacrificed either with their lives or forced into disadvantaged lives, then we can talk about whether the abortion decision is one anybody but the mother can understand. Until the village improves its record on the Golden Rule, there can be no moral choices.
6
I find it disappointing that Dr. Wen, when given an opportunity to depoliticize the message and trajectory of Planned Parenthood, chose to politicize the organization she led by refusing to end PP's official sponsorship (as did many organizations) of the Women's March after its leadership expressed antisemitic views and aligned with a notorious homophobe, Hitler admirer and Jew-hater.
Her choice was an insult to all Planned Parenthood healthcare providers, physicians and patients who are LGBTQI and or Jewish and made it impossible for me, a lifelong supporter, to donate to PP during her tenure. I look forward to renewing my support now.
3
As much as I appreciate Dr. Wen's approach in general, in this point in time it's like bringing a knife to a dwell. Abortion right is being viciously attacked and need to be viciously defended.
7
Dear Dr. Wen - tragically there is no room for those of us in the middle because a minority seeks to impose their beliefs on the rest of us. We live in a time that harkens back to our ignorant tribal prehistory. You can only be with us or against us.
6
Sadly the opponents of abortion access are all politics and religion and couldn't care less about the medicine. Not the right person for the times.
8
When people who work for or with abortion providers are systematically stalked, harassed, and murdered, the motive to do so must be either sociopathic or political.
4
"...the most effective way to advance reproductive health is to be clear that it is not a political issue but a health care one...the Trump administration announced that it would start enforcing a gag rule that would prohibit...referring patients to abortion care...I had been leading our organization’s fights against these attacks..."
Deception--self and other: the best way to win a political battle is to pretend it's not a political battle. To rise above the fray with education, science, women's rights.
In the USA today, everything is a political battle--even health care--even science and academia. All are challenged by religion--godstory realism--exercising enormous political power. Religion itself is a pawn of the Moneylords--as in "Divine Right" days--its job is to frighten and subdue the masses.
To sum it up, it's The DarkAges vs The Enlightenment. NYT Cohn tells us The Dark Ages are winning.
Not the time to play nice with opponents dedicated to winning by whatever means.
Moneylords and their vassal knights have a lot to lose. To them abortion, health care and quality of life for the masses means nothing provided they control the government. They will always have access to abortion and the ability to determine their life paths.
6
Dr. Wen is the first PP executive who is finally addressing what PP has long ignored, to its detriment.
For those of us who are Pro-choice yet are really increasingly appalled at the thousands of abortions performed annually, she could have made a difference. Abortion is not a benign procedure emotionally for anyone. Woe vs.Wade should be protected and all should make their own health decisions without interference.
But women AND men also have the responsibility to prevent a pregnancy even beginning. My doctor is giving away gree diabetes glucose monitors!!!! FIGHT for free birth control and the education needed to take PP out of the crosshairs !!!! Prevention first!!! Look at the numbers of abortions and tell me you are ok with that. BTW I dont attend church, so no anti-religious lectures pls. I am a health care provider and I am responding for the women who still talk about having had an abortion in their past, and somewhere deep down, cant shake it, and the reasons for having had one is not usually why it comes up. The emotional weight of trying to forget is for life. No law or organization can fix this effect. I hope PP can address all aspects of what will make the organization successful going forward and not tear themselves apart politically.
8
Planned Parenthood is acting like another arm of liberal elites to advance their fancy social ideas and politics. That is the reason why people like Dr. Wen who wants to promote sensible ideas is out.
3
Another individual trying to find the "middle ground" that does not exist anymore. When will people stop living in the 60s/70s and we did not even get along that well even then. The anti abortion forces will never stop, they will just keep coming. That is what they do and if the last few decades did not prove that to you then you are just not paying attention. And if you think they will stop with abortion rights you are kidding yourselves. Contraception and sex education is also on their hit list and they are just getting started. Women's health is not on their agenda if you have not noticed; telling us how to practice sex and controlling our behavior is. Sure, they know how to sound principled and nice, but is a con job. The Civil War is still going on. This is just another one of its offshoots. All you deep thinkers out there thinking you are going to negotiate and find common ground, etc.better start getting real. The other side sure is going for the jugular and you better decide what side you are on.
10
Sounds like the organization made the right choice. In these times when fascism is clearly on Little Donnie's agenda, this becomes a Political Issue! Bullies - and fascists - only understand power, and they walk all over people who just lie down and take it (hoping for the best).
5
Everything is about politics. And in life you are either pro-choice or anti-choice. Conservatives hate freedom and choice. Liberals love freedom and choice. Pick a side.
6
Abortion has nothing to do with it.
It’s about a woman’s right to decide whether she wants to have a baby. That’s called Choice.
No wonder they fired you.
6
How much of this discussion is about health?
How much of this discussion is about politics?
How much of this discussion is about people's rights?
How much of this discussion is about seeking another self-righteous American war?
Answer: all of the above. it's not so simple after all.
2
Having just read the NYT picks (& responses to many of them) on Megan McCain's op-ed, I find this piece by Dr. Wen refreshing. She is pro-choice but recognizes the nuances of the issue. She is not shrill, cold-hearted, or even mean as so many of the comments on McCain's piece were.
The problem with talking about abortion is that the extremists on both sides dominate the conversation. If you try to offer a more complicated opinion on abortion from a pro-life pov, you get attacked as a misogynist, religious fanatic, or fascist.
What people need to realize is that one can be conflicted on this issue. I fully support women's self-determination; they deserve all the rights & opportunities that men have enjoyed forever.
However, I also support the right to life of the unborn. When a new set of DNA is created, there is a unique individual who, unless miscarried or aborted, will go on to make his or her contribution to the world (for good or ill). And though I am religious, my pro-life position is not based on my faith since the Bible doesn't mention abortion, & churches' teaching are wrong in so many other ways that I think for myself.
And, contrary to so many Republicans & pro-life advocates, I support sex ed, free & easily obtained birth control, govt. support for mother & child after s/he is born; exceptions for endangerment of the mother's life & rape; & the morning after pill.
Too bad Planned Parenthood & extremists on both sides don't want nuance or compromise.
4
The most important point of all has been completely left out of the discussion. That is the separation of church and state, a founding principal of our democracy. The havoc caused by the anti-abortion (please don't kid me that you are pro-life) folks is going to continue until or unless the matter of freedom to choose one's destiny is settled. Keep your "morals" off my body!
8
Dr Wen is another (and certainly not the last) casualty of an increasingly ignorant society that thinks a political expression is the logical conclusion of every issue. More and more doctors and other experts will be sidelined to make way for partisan excuses for intellectuals.
3
Compromising the position that human life only begins once the head exits the birth canal is a slippery slope that must be avoided at all cost.
Yup.
To my sorrow, another reason why Trump will be re-elected.
And, Planned Parenthood will not survive another Trump Administration.
But, the right thinking principals of PP can commune and commiserate in their high dudgeon in their yoga classes as to why the poor unwashed women of America have not come to their defense.
3
In a perfect would this would be all about healthcare and nothing else. Unfortunately we're living in a world where one side is literally waging a religious crusade to deny women the right to choose or even use contraception. And that side is very much making it political and succeeding in red states where onerous medical regulations are passed primarily for the purpose of back door banning abortions while disingenuously claiming that abortion is technically legal. And now states like Alabama and Georgia are deliberately passing Talibanesque antiabortion laws criminalizing miscarriages in hopes they will be challenged all the way to the Supreme Court where the GOP picked conservative majority will overturn Roe v Wade. Making it political might be disgusting, except the people that want to ban it made it political from Day One. Planned Parenthood advocating for abortion rights is one of the few things keeping us from the return of back alleys and coathangars.
8
A woman should control her own body. Yes. However, there is a point where the fetus is a person, and that is before 9 months. I don't know anyone who believes that a woman has the right to terminate a viable pregnancy in the third trimester, unless her life is in danger. There is debate about where the cut off should be.
When the Democrats insist that it is always a woman's choice; the FOX GOPers say that means abortion on demand all they way to 9 months.
Unless the Democrats come out and say aborting a healthy third trimester fetus is wrong and should be illegal; millions of voters will vote for GOP. FOX viewers really do believe that Democrats support a woman aborting a viable late term fetus. I don't think it is true.
Most FOX GOPers think women should have choice in the first trimester.
There is more agreement than disagreement.
1
Still trying to understand why a 36 year old person with only a few years of work experience due to how long a medical education take was ever selected to head this critical organization. Experience matters. Our your obsessed country seems to forget that moxie and energetic ideas don’t replace the experience it takes like Cecile Richards is - to navigate the complex landscape of a “CEO.” Hope the Board remembers that with the replacement hire
5
Around 1990, during an ultrasound at about 14 weeks along in my pregnancy, we discovered the fetus had died, probably within the previous week. I was living in Manchester, NH, having recently moved there from Houston, Texas. I mention this because after several days of waiting for the fetus to expel itself on it’s own, my doctor began to fret that he might have to send me to Boston for a D&C. I was flabbergasted that he did not know how to perform this procedure. In Houston, I could have had a D&C on the same day we discovered the fetus was not viable.
Where was I? Podunk Center, USA? I ended up crossing my legs for the drive down to Brigham and Women’s in Boston.
Later I asked my nurse practitioner why no D&C in Manchester. She said no one did them because of the competition between the Catholic hospital and the secular hospital in town. They were simply not performed. Manchester was a Catholic town. A couple years later another Manchester patient successfully sued her doctor’s when she ended up being sent to Hanover/Dartmouth for her procedure.
Abortions are healthcare. If doctor’s are afraid to perform abortions, then they won’t know how to do other essential services for women. Women deserve to be treated as full humans. We have the moral capacity to make decisions about our own bodies and our own health.
8
You did well quitting. No solution outside a revolution. Thousands of billions will try to stop this revolution.
1
C's Daughter,
The actual number of abortions performed in 2018 was 332,757. I found this information when I typed in the question "Is Planned Parenthood a non profit which it is.
I think $500,000 was an exorbitant salary for the former president of Planned Parenthood, Cecile Richards, to have made. A good portion of that money should have gone to Planned Parenthood's operations. They do not need taxpayer money when they pay such high salaries. This is a sham operation.
1
Ugh, her naiveté is disappointing. She's only 4 years older than I am. Makes me wonder how long she's been paying attention to abortion rights and reproductive justice issues in this country.
"We need to stop treating those whose views differ from our own with scorn and suspicion, and instead work together to safeguard our health, our rights and our future."
Why? Anti-choicers treat me with nothing but scorn and suspicion, and think I am an immoral baby killer. How can I respect a person like that? What on earth could I possible to do change the mind of someone who literally thinks I want to "kill my children."
Dr. Wen is deeply misguided if she thinks that the anti-abortion groups that operate on a national level will ever "work together" to safeguard women's health and rights. Maybe the occasional anti-choicer will be convinced, but on a national scale where it really matters, nope. If she'd been paying attention, she would understand this.
Her position would be more appropriate in a world where abortion access is not under threat.
9
Like it or not, abortion is now and will likely always be…political. That’s not because pro-choice supporters believe it should be so. It’s because abortion opponents have sewn it into the very fabric of our politics. To not see this clearly…endangers Roe.
Abortion is also political because for some unfathomable reason politicians believed - and still believe - they have a right to determine what a woman can and cannot do with her own body.
(Imagine you are a being from another planet and you arrive in the U.S. and discover that the government determines what more than half the population…can do with their own body? Wouldn't you wonder about that?
As a former Planned Parenthood volunteer and Board member - someone who has marched with almost a million women to the steps of the Supreme Court chanting “get your laws off my body,” – I can tell you I never dreamed we would still be fighting this fight all these years later.
But fight we will. Ms. Wen’s perceptions do not align with our present reality and could not be more poorly tuned or timed.
6
She's right. Allowing the extreme right to drive healthy minds to extremism is surrender to evil.
1
Either way, anti-abortion is typically rooted in religious dogma. Religion has no place in trying to dictate policy to government bodies within the US of A.
4
You come in with a dictatorial style (how and when to read e mails smacks of ego and dominance) and then operated under the naive assumption that abortion was't a political issue. In America, rightly or wrongly, abortion is nothing but political. You got it wrong plain and simple.
3
Dr. Wen,
My wife and I have supported Planned Parenthood for the very mission that you have advocated. We stopped giving to NARAL because it had gone against Republicans—even when they supported a woman’s right to choose.
We supported Planned Parenthood (tripling our annual contribution when it came under siege) — and, especially after you assumed your leadership role. The politicalization of the health care of women is bad for women—and it is not the fault of only one side. Your departure is a tragedy for women, and for our country which desperately needs leaders who seek common ground. We hope that you will continue your advocacy and your service. Sadly, we see Planned Parenthood playing into the hands of its enemies as it now goes full throttle in the direction of NARAL
3
I sympathize with Dr. Wen’s decision, and I’d point out that these fights between the political and the medical have been going in for a very long time. In fact, this is kind of a classic dialectic in any public-serving institution.
But the thing is, Planned Parenthood didn’t go looking for political fights starting about 1972. The org and its services—from checkups to vaccines to counselling to contraception to abortion services—got jumped by religious fruitcakes, the Catholic church, evangelicals, and right-wing politicians.
5
Like it or not, abortion is now and will likely always be…political. That’s not because pro-choice supporters believe it should be so. It’s because abortion opponents have sewn it into the very fabric of our politics. To not see this clearly…is folly.
It's also political because for some unfathomable reason politicians believed - and still believe - they have a right to determine what a woman can and cannot do with her own body.
Imagine you are a being from another planet and you arrive in the U.S. and discover that the government determines what more than half the population…can do with their own body? Don't you wonder if that is moral, ethical...or humane?
As a former Planned Parenthood volunteer and Board member - someone who has marched with almost a million women to the steps of the Supreme Court chanting “get your laws off my body,” – I can tell you I never dreamed we would still be fighting this fight all these years later.
But fight we will. Ms. Wen’s perceptions do not jive with reality and could not be more poorly tuned or timed.
2
If you want to convince the general public, go the Wen way. If you want to fire up your base, fire Dr. Wen. That's pretty much what happened.
2
IMO, the republicans made it about politics. They’re just not concerned with the healthcare side of anything. They’re not concerned with healthcare period! It’s a shame that they’ve shown what they care about. As the character “Jerry McGuire” once said “Show me the Money!” That’s what they’re all about.
2
What you have found is that people love to fight. They would rather fight than try to find common ground and win.
So, they lose. Oh well, you tried.
1
These sound like good faith differences of opinion regarding strategic direction and short term tactics. But writing an op-ed criticizing the organization you had fiduciary duties to and submitting it to the NYT is petty and shows a lack of respect for the board and basic governance principles. While I respect Dr. Wen's views, I do not respect her decision to take parting shots at Planned Parenthood, especially if she is being paid severance (or perhaps a severance dispute lies beneath the surface here). Moreover, it's difficult to see how this noisy exit is supposed to depoliticize PP.
3
I’m a medical student and I witness this kind of absent minded liberalism all the time. Dr. Wen wants to believe medicine is different from politics. But it’s not. In the words of Virchow: “politics is nothing else but medicine on a large scale.”
Who we choose to heal is fundamentally a question of politics
5
If you want to change policies, you have to change minds.
Though doing such can be extremely difficult, it is the only way.
Unless, of course, you prefer to live in a dictatorship.
1
So sad to see Planned Parenthood missing the chance of a generation to move forward. They have been losing battle after battle with these tactics for almost 50 years now and yet they have now chosen to revert to base and fight using the same losing tactics that they have always used.
It's so obvious that Dr. Wen was making big changes. That made a lot of people internally uncomfortable. No surprise there! In big organizational moments like this, the old guard needs to step down and the new leader needs to bring her own people who are aligned with her vision.
It seems that the board of Planned Parenthood is myopic and inexperienced. Change in a complex organization is really, really hard. The board should have known that it's extra hard after the departure of a long-time leader like Cecile Richards. They should have supported their new CEO. Instead, it appears that they failed to stand by as she implemented their vision. They got cold feet and reverted back to what they know.
Dr. Wen, you will have my support and the support of so many across the country who applaud your vision and how you have handled this very difficult situation: with grace and humanity.
3
Planned Parenthood did not politicize a woman's right to make her own choices about her own body. Birth choice was politicized by professional religionists like Falwell and Weyrich in the late 70's, and it wasn't because they gave a rat's patootie about the well-being of children - they didn't then and they don't now.
50 years ago evangelicals were Pro-Choice! In '68, the evangelical's Christianity Today published an issue on contraception/abortion. Prof. Bruce Waltke, of the uber-conservative Dallas Theological Seminary, explained the Bible plainly teaches that life begins at birth:
“God does not regard the fetus as a soul, no matter how far gestation has progressed… in contrast to the mother, the fetus is not reckoned as a soul.”
In '71, the Southern Baptists passed a resolution affirming abortion should be legal to protect both the life of the mother and her emotional health as well.
So, what caused the Reversal of the Evangelicals? In the late 70's - well after '73's Roe v. Wade - Falwell/Weyrich cynically politicized Birth Choice as a way to attack Jimmy Carter because Carter was threatening the tax exempt status of religious madrassas like Falwell's Liberty "university". Why? Because the madrassas were practicing de facto segregation. Falwell's interests were in keeping his college lily-white while avoiding paying taxes. Birth Choice was just a tool.
Forced Birth hysterics won't be swayed by PPs "outreach" and logic. Onward x'tian soldiers!
4
i, a male, a husband of a Stanford grad Doctor, for over 35 years, agree with you WHOLEHEARTEDLY!!!
1
Will men ever be held responsible in any way for unintended pregnancies?
4
My 93 year old Irish Catholic uncle left the priesthood (then the youngest monsignor in America) disgusted with the Church in 1971, so that he could do real work for real downtrodden. He married and over time adopted 5 children at their birth from their indigent young mothers (and saw that they all went to college), set up a charity in Seattle and spent his whole life since immersed with his wife in the lives of street addicts, the homeless, the destitute, and the elderly.
He is an endlessly happy & satisfied person except for one thing, politics today and the potential for this nation to turn downhill into a fractious special interest hell, unsafe for his children (who happen to be minorities).
I had not seen him for 40 years (since I hitched out West as a teen), but when he visited the East Coast two years ago to visit the haunts of his youth one last time before he passes, he was explicit to me on one point: Everything is politics.
This elderly saint of a man was vividly clear, we need to fight in politics for every charitable cause we know, because that's where the rubber meets the road and where the opposition stops progress. He is thrilled with prospect of a Sanders presidency and dismayed by what he referred to as, "That [expletive] from NY."
2
I want the second Bill of Rights *** : government must provide the means to obtain the training necessary for life long self-respecting employment with paid two week vacation, eradicate health-related bankruptcy - leading to homelessness, regulate the practices of employers that are selfish, guarantee the freedom to opine without fear of retribution, and aspire to Justice not based on the financial ability to post bail until proven guilty
*** see FDR
In other words, I am a socialist
And I wholeheartedly agree with Leana
And our save the country from self- immolation 2020 candidates must agree .... the nominee must understand that revolutions require a series of steps, not explosions - when a significant percentage of the voters have more fear than knowledge.
Some voters may not pass a drug test.
Out of the same cohort, a great deal would fail a civics test.
I have two dreams : get rid of the Electoral College, and make one’s vote = to the fraction ( out of a hundred that each voter scored on a high school graduate level civics test )... total fantasy but... so was that one step 50 years ago.
Sorry for the length, but we have a lot of problems - and we are playing with fire.
1
From PP's own mission statement, "Planned Parenthood is the nation’s leading provider and advocate of high-quality, affordable health care for women, men, and young people, as well as the nation’s largest provider of sex education." Nowhere does the mission statement it include the word abortion, yet they hired a physician with the intent that she would focus on health care, but fired her when she did just that and not enough on its strong political advocacy. This is not a good move for PP or women.
7
I keep reminding people that Planned Parenthood was supporting responsible birth control before abortion was even legal. But a move like this undermines my message, and that of the Democrats that abortion should be safe, legal, and rare.
1
Dr Wen’s vision of abortion and contraception as a normal part of mainstream healthcare is possible. It is how we do it here in Australia. It is a health issue between a woman and her general practitioner, not a political one. But, obviously it is a very divisive issue in the United States, which is unfortunate.
8
How dare Planned Parenthood undermine its strongest argument for protecting women's health by publicly focusing only on abortion rather than the other essential services they provide. Absent universal access to high quality healthcare, many women rely on Planned Parenthood for their healthcare needs, of which access to safe abortions is but one aspect. Dr. Wen is a supremely qualified advocate, and her removal should be considered a mark of shame on the organization she led. Dr. Wen's unyielding compassion and brilliance should have been cherished by the organization's leadership.
Abortion should be solely a personal issue, not a political one. It is perhaps the most personal decision a woman can make in her lifetime. Making such a decision requires compassion, requires access to information, requires a safe place to go to ask questions and get truthful answers. All of those things are provided by Planned Parenthood facilities. To think the organization now cowers in the face of Dr. Wen's vision of whole women's health is disgraceful. Acceding to the purely political to the detriment of women's health is short-sighted, and it is in the face of such cowardice that we shall continue to speak out.
6
Sadly, the narrative being pushed by pro abortion advocates doesn't allow for nuances or compromises. They want abortion on demand, paid for by public funds, and with absolutely no restrictions. That's a losing proposition, since most Americans actually have nuanced opinions and feelings. We, democrats, seem to be trying our very best to hand the 2020 election to Trump and the republicans, and labeling us as baby killers, they're happy to take.
6
Dr. Wen has a wonderful vision for Planned Parenthood. I wish that she had put all of those items in the top half of her article, doing an article that is primarily advancing that vision through the opportunity that she has here.
Instead, she gives readers gradual sense of her vision, while she justifies her departure. She would have done more for Planned Parenthood by not diluting her vision with justification for why she is leaving.
The second half of the article she could have focused on the undue politicization and internal resistance, which is directly important for understanding her departure
Readers deserve to better understand the holistic sense of Planned Parenthood, not the supplementary point of why she is leaving.
For mine, the decision by the Planned Parenthood board to remove Dr. Wen is disappointing, short-sighted, and ultimately a cowardly one. After the decision to have a physician serve as the head of the organization for the first time in fifty-odd years, with a mandate to make clear to all that PP is a women's health organization first and foremost an abortion advocacy group second, to bail on that direction at the first sign of internal resistance and after only eight months is hardly a ringing endorsement of PP's capacity for change or ability to expand its public-facing scope beyond solely fighting for abortion access.
While access to healthcare (including abortions) should not be a partisan issue, unfortunately the US has apparently decided that it is so. By making this short-sighted change at the head of the organization, PP is only feeding the partisan fight, instead of concentrating on all of the incredibly valuable work that it does (and should trumpet more) in advocating for women's rights and access to healthcare for all women.
By bringing attention also to all of the invaluable non-reproductive rights services that PP provides (services that reach and help many more women than does PP's abortion services), the organization could have made itself harder for Republicans to target, while still fighting as hard as ever for women's access to all types of healthcare.
8
I fully appreciate that Dr. Wen has thoughtfully penned a piece regarding her leaving Planned Parenthood. Unfortunately, I do not know why she would view the mission of Planned Parenthood as nuanced, or the issue of abortion, women's reproductive rights or healthcare for women anywhere in this country as nuanced.
Can't we just say, or even agree, that women deserve objective, high quality healthcare delivered by a skilled health services team? See? No nuance.
Are these things also nuanced? Separating children from their parents at our border merely because they were trying to build a better life. Several hundred of whom may never see their parents again. In our country there are approximately 500,000 children in foster care. Five Hundred Thousand human beings. It would be really nice to see the "right to life" movement become the "no child without a permanent home" movement. Or how about the "no child goes to bed hungry" movement? Or how about the "every child deserves a quality education" movement?
As an organization Planned Parenthood, unfortunately, continues to fight for its right to treat each person who walks through its doors with dignity and compassion. As a free American I have the right to free speech and freedom of religion, what I don't have nor do I want is the right to tell a woman what she should do with her own body, or to force people to have children that society (especially narcissistic American society) does not want to care for. That is evident.
3
Planned Parenthood was there for me fifty years ago when I was a seventeen-year-old seeking contraception. I would not have known where to go if there hadn't been a PP Clinic in my community. I thank them for the care and sound medical advice regarding contraception they provided me. A few years later, my husband and I started a family and today I'm the happy grandmother of eight. It's too bad PP is seen by many as just abortion providers. PP would have been well served by Dr. Wen.
11
The Planned Parenthood I supported was about doing the right things for the right reasons (as Leana Wen repeatedly espoused.)
No political neophyte, Cecile Richards constantly stated this same belief in defending PP in the political arena.
Unfortunately, it seems those entrusted with Planned Parenthood today are more interested in winning the political victory about abortion and opposing "the large majority of Americans who can unite behind the goal of improving the health and well-being of women and children."
7
Dr. Wen is a courageous woman who believes that women's health is more important than politics. Planned Parenthood has disgraced itself.
8
I agree with Dr. Wen. Planned Parenthood has become too focused on a single aspect of women’s healthcare, as a result of which it has become the principal target of political forces on the right who oppose abortion. Had Dr. Wen been allowed to emphasize the broader role the organization serves, I believe it would have been able to gain the support of the significant portion of the public which, while ambivalent about abortion, are outraged by the current assault on access to affordable, accessible healthcare.
8
Dr. Wen’s exit confirms that Planned Parenthood is all about abortion. I just hope that we are on the right side of history. If 50 years from now we can communicate with the brain using brainwaves and discover that fetuses are conscious beings, we are going to be judged harshly as a society. Science is a double edge sword. It has debunked some religious beliefs but it could also debunk some atheist believes in the future.
5
Atheism is about one thing only: a lack of belief in the existence of god. There are no "beliefs" for science to debunk.
1
Having read a lot of the comments, I am interested and would like to hear from readers. If medical science ever got to the point where an unwanted embryo could be relocated (in a minimally invasive manner) to the body of a woman who wanted it, would abortion cease to be viewed as a right that women needed to protect?
I know the question sounds like science fiction, but we don't know where technology will eventually take us. Perhaps the answer to this question can clarify for each of us whether our concern is primarily a political issue or a medical one.
1
Sorry, Dr. Wen, but you were fired because you failed at the primary mission of a CEO: obtain and maintain the support of the Board of Directors for your strategic objectives and your plan to achieve them. I suspect that, as usual, communications were insufficient.
5
The abortion rate has fallen greatly. And a third of all abortions are not done surgically. They are done with medications. Those abortions do not need to be done in a clinic. Primary care doctors or regular gynecologist offices can prescribe abortion medications and do the follow up appointments required.
With Plan B medication over the counter and perhaps abortion medication one day also being over the counter or now simply prescribed by a PCP, what exactly will be Planned Parenthood other than simply another medical provider, billing insurance and providing services?
Planned Parenthood should just forgo the federal dollars that come with so much controversy. The abortion battle is all over but the shouting. Coat hangers just is not a realistic threat in 2019. Sure, there will be more state laws trying to hurt women and punish women and those should be fought. And they are being fought and won even with this current court. But why continue to fight as if it's 1975?
3
Your argument for the eventual irrelevance of PP focuses on nonsurgical abortion, when you yourself state that two thirds of abortions do need to be performed in a clinic; you're getting ahead of yourself.
1
I agree with Dr. Wens approach to Planned Parenthood. The Democratic party needs to be willing to look at this issue in light of the medical advances that have been made in the last 50 years. It is not primarily a political issue but a medical issue that politics has hijacked to fundraise from us liberals. The right has used it to define the left and beat our eyeballs in with their tactics. The tone needs to change.
8
Why did Dr. Wen take the job in the first place? Hadn't she studied the history of the organization and its inherently political aspect--to maintain the right for women's choice about control over their own bodies?
Did she think that it could only be about women's health and that politics would not interfere as it has done for a half century post-Roe, and for all the centuries before?
Seems rather naive. Politics is not a dirty word (although in these times many seem to think so), but concerns our social lives together and how we can help lives be more than they might in the rule of the jungle.
I often think that women alone should have the vote about abortion rights and reproductive assistance---most everything related to preventing or enhancing female pregnancies or general fertility. How can we men know what it all is, even with deep empathy for those in women's bodies.
4
They so-called “pro-life” claim they want to limit abortions. Study after study shows that sex ed and free and readily-available contraception are far and away the two best ways to reduce abortions.
Outside of the above, want to really limit abortion? Start with the men and the teenage boys. Which none of the “pro-life” movement spends any substantive activism on. If for every pregnancy a male made he was automatically and strictly responsible for any child he brought into the world, things would change. It should start at the hospital and birth certificate. Child protection services should check in periodically, is the man doing his part? If he is no longer in the house, his wages should be garnished immediately and automatically, the mother shouldn’t have to go to court to secure child support.
It is only incredibly recently that men have been legally responsible for child support. Why were such laws even necessary? Because men were leaving babies all over and not taking any responsibility for them was the norm, not the exception. Pro-lifer’s activism even includes the idea of a father’s rights to have a say in whether the mother gets an abortion. How much activism/time/energy/funding is spent talking about men’s RESPONSIBILITIES in these situations? Effectively none. It certainly isn’t a plank issue for them. Why not? Because it is a culture war against women and not about child welfare at all, and never was.
2
C's Daughter,
I find it troubling that the former president of planned parenthood, Cecile Richards, made $500,00 in compensation. This is a a non profit and she should have not made that much money. A portion of her salary should have gone towards the services provided by planned parenthood. They should not be getting any taxpayer money when they give their employees such exorbitant salaries.
3
@KMW If you want the best and brightest leadership for national organizations, be they profit or non profit, you have to compensate them. That might seem like a lot of money but leaders of major non profit organizations are already taking a pay cut working for a group like Planned Parenthood.
4
Very common to bring people into an organization to make changes and then freak when they actually try to implement change. As every therapist knows, change is difficult.
4
I am a life long supporter of PP. I started using their services for my health care in my late teens, and well into my early 30's. I met a woman in my 40's, who railed against PP. I educated her to the fact Planned Parenthood was a health service, and told her had it not been for PP, I would have never received my first mammogram at a price I could afford. This woman had no idea Planned Parenthood did anything but abortions. Her response? "They need a better marketing team." I have thought about that statement for the past 25 years, knowing well she was right. America must understand Planned Parenthood is a health organization first and foremost. I am so disappointed in this decision. Leana is right. 100%.
19
When I was pregnant with my two children, I knew they were my babies. I would have never considered abortions. I served on the local PP board and volunteered for 20 years because I don’t want to make the choice for other women. But I’m also not ok with abortion up until the time of birth like some within the extremist camp either.
We need to have tolerance for the middle, people who are both pro life and pro choice. I met Dr. Wen when she came to visit and that’s what she is too. But those hard liners within our movement would never be ok with that.
My prayers are with her. She just had a miscarriage. Now she lost her job, for doing her job to speak for the forgotten silent majority.
11
It SHOULD be about health care. The government has made it about politics.
16
It is disingenuous for Dr. Wen not to address the management issues that were highly cited as additional reason for her dismissal. Examples of how to prioritize emails from Dr. Wen were given as examples of her leadership style. Like the questions with Klobuchar’s leadership style, feminist women should address these head on, rather than keep them quiet, giving the perception that women can’t make leadership mistakes in dealing with personnel as well. In addition, it could bring about a great discussion about women taking on traditionally male styles of leadership and how sexism plays a role in both evaluating and criticizing such styles.
4
Any time a new leader comes with a new vision, there will be huge management changes. Old staff need to be transitioned and move on. New processes have to be started.
It’s up to the board to support a new leader and back her up. Sounds like what happened here is that the board just listened to the staff whining about changes. Like they are whining to the papers. What kind of organization let’s staff go around them to reporters to speak poorly about their former boss? Sounds to me like Wen was trying to enforce discipline on an undisciplined group of people.
Maybe the conversation we need to have is how boards choose women of color to lead organizations that are already in dysfunction then push them off. It’s called the glass cliff.
7
Carolyn H,
Planned Parenthood may do breast exams but they do not do mammograms. They give women referrals. Mammograms are the main detector of cancer among women and this procedure has saved many women's lives.
The other services you state they perform are minuscule in comparison to the number of abortions they provide. They are the leading abortion provider in the country. That is an absolute fact.
I am staunchly pro life and will remain so until my dying day. I am also a woman.
“I am staunchly pro life and will remain so until my dying day.”
And her point is...?
2
It is likely that PP is the only abortion provider left in many places. Doctors used to do them in their offices or in outpatient clinics until they were getting murdered for it. Abortion needs to remain safe and legal for anyone who makes that choice. It is not anyone else's business.
2
I am so glad to know that due to being staunchly pro-life you fight every day against death penalty, against children dying in detention centers, against the war in Yemen and our military support of it as well as against gun related deaths. Or are you only against-other-womens-right-to-chose?
4
I applaud Dr Wen. Abortion is political but it's reasons are not political. It is also nuanced. Much like the NRA/gun ownership, there are 2A people who believe that the government should have no sway on gun ownership and that any restrictions that stand between the "good people" and guns even if a law is aimed at the most egregious among us is wrong. Similarly, Planned Parenthood risks becoming a political organization that simply fights for unrestricted access to abortion as opposed to women's health. When the 1% runs an organization and applies a zero tolerance lens, then the organization becomes weaponized.
5
Dr. Wen's approach suffers from the same Panglossian flaw as Presdient Obama's. It assumes that the other side is open to reason and willing to discuss the issue in good faith. Neither assumption is true, and anyone who can't see that is part of the problem, not the solution. It is not enough to be a good person.
I am sorry, but we are in a civil war, we do not have the luxury of a parlor room discussion, and any one who cannot tell friend from foe is a liability.
20
The desire of those to take away a woman's rights over her own body is a political aim. Further, to try and find common ground means that there is a point where it is acceptable for someone who has no connection to her beyond common citizenship to have a voice in the reproductive decisions she makes. Not a loved one with shared responsibilities, not her doctor, but in essence a complete stranger. Just another voter.
Dr Wen apparently believes that these strangers have a right to control what a woman can do in regards to her own body. She accepts that they get a voice in deciding, it is just a question to Dr Wen as to how much?
How much should a random person on the street get to decide as to whether a person should receive treatment for a broken arm? How much should Dr Wen get to decide if a random man not under her care get Viagra? (Not based on the safety of efficacy of the drug, but whether Ms Wen, her Doctorate is not involved, has a moral disgust by this man having sex.)
The problem is Dr Wen likes women getting health care, but Ms Wen will not protect her freedom to make the choices over her own body. Ms Wen thinks that some stranger has a right to tell the people she provides services to what services she can provide.
That is the common ground Dr Wen got let go for. It was an unwillingness to fight for women's rights. I applaud Dr Wen for providing women care, but I don't think she is a leader however on women's rights.
8
Dr. Wen must realize that healthcare -- especially healthcare for women -- has always been political. It was political when birth control was outlawed. It was political as abortion is outlawed. It was political that women's health was/is underfunded. It was/is political that women are not required to be proportionately represented in federally sanctioned drug and device trials. It was political that healthcare is denied to many in our society based upon socio-economic issues which were themselves, in turn. political.
10
As a fellow public health professional, I like and admire Ms. Wen. I had high hopes for her in this job.
However, this op-Ed and other reporting have convinced me that she was the wrong fit from the start. First, healthcare is political — period. Overtures and bothsideism about abortion betray a lack of understanding of the issue and the real barriers women face in obtaining one.
Second, making PP clinics into more comprehensive community health centers is admirable and perhaps necessary in some communities but can’t come at the expense of PP’s core mission. Notably, religiously affiliated organizations actually do a decent job providing other kinds of family primary care like peds or chronic disease management, which Wen should know from her prior job. But religious CHCs do a poor job at the things PP does exceptionally well. Sexual and reproductive healthcare shouldn’t be so Balkanized, but we operate in the world as it is.
Finally, anyone involved in sexual and reproductive care or the movement today knows it’s about REPRODUCTIVE JUSTICE, not just rights. Referring to the rights-based framework shows Wen doesn’t understand that PP is a critical provider for those with nowhere else to go, especially in the “midwestern” places that might not be trans-friendly. She and I will always be able to travel or pay for an abortion, an IUD, or hormone therapy if we need it. JUSTICE ensures those without our privilege also have access — ie rights in name only aren’t rights at all.
16
While her goals are worthy, she was not the right leader for this organization at this particular time. The fact that she calls anti- abortion activists as pro- life shows a deafness to the current political climate. These people are not pro anything when it comes to reproductive choice, reproductive justice or women’s healthcare. They are anti-abortion. Also why can’t she just say abortion, not abortion care? What’s the point of advocating these positions if your head is in the sand that the organization you are trying to improve is being attacked politically and trying to be shut down nationwide by many legislators? This is a major fight and trying to play nice will make this vital organization disappear.
10
Abortion was not a political issue. It was a "perceived" religious issue and has been hijacked by a political party.
"When does life start?" How do other Christian countries deal with this issue? What was the Christian community throughout history looked at this issue? When was the "definition" changed? By whom and for what reason?
If we do not have an honest dialog to dig out the root of this question, but just to stick to the doctrine that we were "taught". Then there is no Common Ground.
7
Dr. Wen, thank you for your service. This is a tough time to continue the work for choice for women, for health care for women, for the mission that should be in sync with the times. I was on the board of Planned Parenthood in Dallas years ago in the hey-day of population control and a fan of Margaret Sanger for her work. We find ourselves in familiar territory where some sort of atavistic fear takes over sensibility. Women have to continue to take care of themselves and fight the good fight.
4
I believe that the argument is bigger than who is right and who is wrong at PP. Is it possible that they could both be right and that there is another solution that solves both concerns?
Am I the only one that is tired of living in a country of one side or the other?
8
@Julie
Because the concern on one side is a woman should not be allowed to dictate what she does with her own body while the other says that women are humans who should have dominion over their mortal coil. You can't have half a human. Either everyone gets rights over their body or no one can yet conservatives want to pick and choose who is human and who is second class.
To be fair, Cecile Richards is a tough act to follow, period. She fought tooth and nail for women and men's healthcare. Yes, PP treats men too. Wen was not the right one, but I don't think anyone can match Ms. Richards' passion so soon after her departure. She is a tough act to follow.
9
Politics prioritized above the needs of the country. Sounds all too familiar. Apparently it is the way these days.
Thanks for you work, Dr. Wen.
7
Some Catholic groups are looking in the direction Dr. Wen was going. Catholics did vote for Obama twice by a narrow margin. There is hope for more movement in that direction. There is realistic hope for common ground.
4
If you want to change the perception of Planned Parenthood, the first thing you need to do is change the name of the organization. I'm not sure how to extricate the organization from such deep advocacy at this point, unless others are willing to pick up the ball. Many non-profits are involved in political advocacy to support their missions. Abortions and birth control are deeply politicized in this country. I do agree that there needs to be much more awareness of the women's health care that Planned Parenthood clinics provide. A name change would help that awareness.
@Deb - So what do you prefer? UN-planned parenthood?
2
I believe Dr. Wen is right. Women's health care is about much more than abortion. I am among those who believe in education and birth control, and I do not believe that Planned Parenthood is doing a really good job with that. Abortion is a medical procedure involving risk. Why not do your best to avoid the pregnancies that you do not want? That's a PROACTIVE HEALTH SOLUTION.
I also suggest that PP have two arms. One privately funded for abortions and a nonprofit for women's health care. It was a mistake to lose Dr. Wen.
8
@Daisy22
You seem to be unaware that PP provides far more access to contraception than abortion. It works very hard to prevent pregnancies with basically zero help from supposed "pro-life" people. It is involved in all aspects of reproductive health but Dr. Wen's idea of getting involved with things like asthma and mental health while well intentioned had nothing to do with its mission of reproductive health.
6
Are you saying that asthma and mental health should not be included in the education and awareness that new mothers need? PP is not just about stopping unwanted pregnancies. It is about the total health of the woman and her baby (if she chooses to have it - or not).
2
"Why not do your best to avoid the pregnancies that you do not want?" THAT'S EXACTLY WHAT PP DOES. I'm not sure what organization you're even talking about!
3
Life begins when a fetus is born and takes it's first breath. Until then it is not a person; not technically, legally or ethically. This must be the firm position of all who are prochoice. Any wiggle room will further erode a woman's right to choose. The prolifers are adamant that life begins at conception, and clinging to that belief gave their movement huge gains. Only a similarly inflexible position can counter it. No compromises!
10
@MJG: some ancient Greeks considered it acceptable to leave young babies to die up to a certain age. You have decided that the cut-off point is at birth. Do you not see that it is possible to have different positions on when termination is acceptable from a moral perspective?
Christians believe in responsibilities more than rights, and so have always taken a position that abortion of a fetus was generally a selfish choice. It should be remembered that abortifacients have been available since ancient times, so this is a position that has been held without significant controversy for many years. Just because it has become acceptable in recent years as part of a subjective “modern” worldview does not provide it with any automatic validity. Your view is your view. As mine is mine. Each society has to make its choice, and individuals do what they think right within that society. Christians believe we will all have to give account for our choices before God. Your choice.
@MJG so the fetus is human but not a person... where have we heard this before?
Jane,
Planned Parenthood performs 330,000 abortions each and every year. You are incorrect to say that abortion is not their main focus. This is where they make the bulk of their money. If they were to lose this very important revenue, they would probably go out of business. And of course they do not want to have that happen. The executives would lose their cushy positions and high salaries.
6
@KMW
Citation needed. Thanks in advance.
PS- Cecile Richards' salary was somewhere around $500k when she was CEO of PP. That's a relatively small amount of money for a CEO of a national organization.
Random, moderately talented partners at midsized law firms in secondary markets make that much money in a year.
15
C's Daughter,
I typed the question "Is planned parenthood a non profit" which it is and saw the information on the number of abortions performed in 2018. The actual number is 332,757 which is even higher than the number I posted in my comment. You can look this up also and see this number is accurate.
That is a very high number of abortions for one year no matter where you stand on the issue. As a pro life woman, I think any number is too many but this is unthinkable. This is terribly depressing and is anything but rare.
3
KMW: Look instead at the services PP provides. They do more breast exams than abortions. Know what their biggest service is? Screening for sexually transmitted diseases. In 2014, they did over 4.5 million of those, more than 40 percent of all the services they provided!
They educate young people on contraception, vaccinate babies, do pap smears, counsel prospective parents...the full gamut of services related to reproductive health. Abortions are only about 3 percent of the services. Yes, more money comes from abortions, because the other services don't cost as much.
I will remain firmly in the pro-choice camp.
Like Dr Wen, I would prefer PP to be less politicized and focus more on all the other services, especially on the services provided in poor rural areas. The healthcare of women, half the population, needs to be prioritized!
10
Presumably Dr. Wen and the board discussed her philosophies and the mission/identity reframing she intended to address with her leadership. By hiring her, they were affirming their support for these intentions. For them to then remove her only eight months into her tenure suggests poor exercise of their duty of care and their fiduciary responsibilities. As such, anyone who considers becoming the next president should be highly suspect of the board's ability to be good stewards of the organization. Some highly qualified candidates may simply pass rather than enter into such a dynamic..
11
To all fairness, she could not be forthcoming with her approach.
It's a "both...and" situation.
PPs all over the nation provide the full range of health care to all kinds of Americans. It is invaluable, necessary and noble. Some of those affiliates provide abortion. Most do not.
Abortion rights are under political attack and the political advocacy of a national organization with clout is crucial.
Abortions rights won't be depoliticized by ignoring them; however. Why can't PP health care professionals provide needed care in facilities while national leaders raise money, awareness and advocate for the full range of reproductive health care rights?
1
Women's rights, Women's dignity and Women's safety is the ultimate political issue.
7
I would like a wallpaper poster of this in my living room. I hope Ms. Wen continues her work promoting, organizing, and providing women's health care. Perhaps she should run for Senate now or the Presidency in 2024.
4
The anti abortion forces are more often than not against contraception too. Choice concerning both is a matter of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness for the woman. I'm for that!
6
@Jane Roberts Your statement is obscenely wrong although you cast it out so blithely.
How politics got between a woman's legs is a story to be told. Why politics insists on remaining there is a travesty. Reproductive decisions ought never have become political. There's no way to stuff pandora's monster back into the box however. It has evolved to what it is now.
Thanks Dr Wen for your service. You voiced some good concepts in your article. Hopefully PP will continue on and serve women and men in its normal areas of health care.
The thing about CHOICE and why I am in favor of it is because it encompasses all options. Birth is one option. Pro-choice isn't always about termination of pregnancy. Clear that up PP as Dr Wen was attempting to do and it'll serve your organization well.
2
I totally agree with Dr. Wen. As a former board member of PP of the Pacific Southwest I believe that the work it does for women’s health goes far beyond abortion. And, I feel that the hard line abortion advocates share more with the current NRA than most of the mainstream people that support choice as a health issue. We need to acknowledge that abortion access is vitally important but is viewed from many different perspectives by moral, thinking people.
16
After everybody has assured access to an abortion, each person can act according to there views and believe. Problem is not that access to abortion force everybody to have one, the problem is the ban of abortion eliminate choice for women of all kind of views on the issue.
3
@Andrea - Wen insisted on making PP a clinic that offered general healthcare, even advertising that they cared for things like asthma. They're not equipped to do that. It was well beyond mission creep. She was full into mission gallop. Without years of pre-planning and fund-raising, PP can't handle a full range of general healthcare without shortchanging its patients who rely on them for reproductive healthcare.
2
There is a solution but no one has tried. Give young women free IUDs. Give adult women excellent contraception and free. Provide incentives and consequences for men to not father unwanted children. Provide women with free pregnancy and toddler care so those who are ready and wishing to have children. The number of abortions would be dramatically reduced and those opposing would be forced to negotiate and compromise.
6
$50,000 to every woman who bears an American citizen, each year for life-
Plus heavy investment in every American citizen, early aptitude testing and entry to courses of study- in which each American citizen, can succeed- and in turn, help to support society.
Call it a “Mother’s Pension”, and then tax and fund adequate societal supports to respect all American life.
4
Why not pay the same amount to those women who have abortions so there is not squabble about equal pay.
I don't think so. Those who oppose abortion will oppose the free contraception and education.
2
As long as men are in power, it will be political for they cannot approach it any way else, another means of maintaining dominance.
6
Dr. Wen was just hired and has only been on the job for a few months.
How could this differences not have been discussed and uncovered before now?
How could Dr. Wen have NOT been clear on her vision?
How could the board have not been clear on their vision with her?
How bad could the communication have been that Planned Parenthood is in this mess (and it is a mess!) when women's health rights are being questioned?
Is everything in chaos right now or is it just me?
4
Sounds like she was very clear on her vision from the start and the board liked it. I was formerly on the board and can tell you they liked idea of having a doctor at the helm doing health not politics. But then her vision started getting implemented and they got cold feet, especially when the staff left and got replaced (as they inevitably would under new leadership with a dramatically different vision). Then 2020 got closer and they really panicked. So they threw her out, unceremoniously.
This is a major board dysfunction, to be sure. Sorry that Dr. Wen had to be the casualty here, but I sure hope she will keep on fighting this good fight.
10
Vision and implementation are two different things, and they may like her approach to abortion as a health matter, but they are not ready for her to bury abortion in heap of other healthcare services as education on asthma or common cold
@yulia: there is some inconsistency here. PP advocates keep trumpeting the work that is done that is about general women’s health (which is well-received by society overall), and now you say that providing services other than abortion is a problem. So which is it?
So, why do we have so little discussion about the reasons women choose to have an abortion? Seems to me that, if one opposes abortion, or wishes to make it rare. One should understand what needs to change for that yo happen.
4
Ms. Wen is precisely wrong. The fight for abortion rights has never been a 'health care' issue. It is a fight for women's dignity and equality as human beings. Moreover the 'healthcare' axis weakens women's right to exclusively chose, NOT in consultation with a doctor. A woman is not a ward of the medical system. A doctor does not decide for women. What is needed is to build a protest movement but independent of businesses and shills for the Democrat party, like NOW, etc. Business and electoral concerns have subordinated and betrayed women's rights for far too long. They betrayed the ERA movement. The majority of people oppose the government denying their right to choose abortion. Abortion rights can be defended and extended but only by women engaging in a fight. Pursuasuve arguments can win over more supporters. The overwhelming majority of Americans reject any government deciding what they may or may not do with their own body. Rights are not given, they are taken and defended in struggle.
8
The dilemma of Planned Parenthood is indeed the dilemma of all Democrats. Do we overcome right-wing extremism by seeking the middle ground or are more aggressive tactics required? While I would ordinarily prefer a big-tent approach, I have come to fear that it will not work in our current environment. The Democratic leadership would do well to settle on a strategy soon and communicate it clearly. There is little time to waste.
4
The New York Mets have a better chance of winning the World Series on the 50th anniversary of the Miracle Mets than Democrats in Congress establishing middle ground especially with the outspoken underclass.
1
Siince so much ground as already been covered in previous comments, I will only comment on a recent experience I encountered with anti-abortion advocates. While at the State House in RI for another issue there was a large group of them there to try and sway a vote coming up in the legislature. While it would be "nice" to agree to civility and a lack of scorn of either side, that is certainly NOT what I encounted with this group. The scorn, the hatred, the suspicion and such was rampant and in full evidence. It was frightening. Trying to have any kind of discussion or medical perspective was totally not on the table with this group. I did not see any "shared values" that would be listened to, the shouting on their part drowned out any kind of conversation.
9
NOW declared itself to be nothing but a political arm of the Democratic party when it supported Bill Clinton acting as a sexual predator in the White House. After that abandonment of principles, nobody believed that supporting women was its first priority. The organization lost its independence and its relevance.
Planned Parenthood in its firing of Dr. Wen has made it clear that its first priority is political activism for abortion rights, rather than providing healthcare for women in need. The two issues are related, but not the same. With this action they will make it easier to shut down PP clinics in states that oppose abortion rights, and to cut off federal funding to their clinics. To claim now, as PP has always done, that abortion is only a small part of the organization's larger purpose of Women's Health will now be brushed aside as hypocrisy. In particular, Democrats from red states will find it harder to support funding for PP in Congress.
11
@Tom Meadowcroft Good points. I have to wonder whether Dr. Wen considered the likely political impact of her essay when she decided to publish it. Kind of underscores her political naivete if she did not and her disingenuousness if she did.
Political activism for women's right to choose is worthy cause. Nothing short of stopping to provide abortion will satisfied the right-wingers. They would be happy to make abortion less visible that they could kill it without attracting too much of attention. And they will cut out aid for healthcare every time they have an opportunity. They cut Medicaid, they cut SNAP, neither of the programs provided abortion.
2
Thank you Dr Wen for your dedication and expertise. This column clarifies the primary challenge for public policy on women's healthcare... as well as healthcare for all Americans. Healthcare is more politicized than ever before. We need diverse expertise on critical issues such as access to quality healthcare, what defines quality care, and our governments role in these matters. It stands to reason that highly experienced healthcare providers have a leading voice in policy discussions.
9
Dr Wen’s points are clear and logical, and her approach sounds good. This decision by PP will polarize and endanger critical support that they need for providing health case. The American electorate may oppose the removal of Roe vs Wade, but they are not so keen on abortion itself, and nor should they be. The right strategy is to reduce the “need” for it.
13
If they are not keen, they should not have one, but to ban abortion. and yet claim that you are for Roe vs Wade is top of hypocrisy.
This is what the current administration and its assault on our rights have made of us. I am a long time supporter of PP and also a physician. The ousting if Dr Wen distresses me, mostly as an indicator of the fracturing of a valuable institution that upholds our rights by providing essential care for the American underclass known as women. As one commenter said “Soldiers are needed”. But leaders like Dr Wen are also needed. Let’s hope she finds the right place to continue her urgently needed and essential work.
13
We need to stop treating those whose views differ from our own with scorn and suspicion even when their views include treating us with scorn and suspicion? We know how well this approach worked for Obama in defanging and overcoming his opposition.
Planned Parenthood offers services that give it an opportunity to spread its philosophy of caring for people whether they can pay or not, using care to promote a scientific, pragmatic view, secular view of health that care recipients may not encounter anywhere else in their lives. Providing health care without using it to promote God-centered understandings of things, and particularly the role of women in a God-centered world, is in fact an attack on these God-centered understandings.
4
I don't know why Leana Wen was terminated. Look at the photo accompanying this article. She was out there supporting abortion rights which is the mission of Planned Parenthood. She has always been in favor of abortion rights or else she would not have been hired. Maybe she wanted to promote other services as well and the organization was less than pleased to remove focus on their big money maker abortion. This is the cash cow for Planned Parenthood and Heaven forbid the focus is taken off the prize. When many people think of Planned Parenthood they automatically think abortion. This is what I believe anyway. This is their main goal and number one message and cash cow.
3
I don't know if it is cash cow, but it seems that PP is only the provider who offers abortion. All other services are offered by other clinics as well. And it Dr. Wen doesn't understands the unique role of PP in women's healthcare, she should not take the job in the first place.
2
@KMW
Planned Parenthood's goal is "planned parenthood." Their mission is to educate women about their reproductive rights and, through education, avoiding unwanted pregnancies. It is a non profit organization meaning revenues are directed into their mission (women's healthcare), not profits.
Abortion is not PP's "main goal." This a message (spin) created by pro-life propaganda. Do you really think that a non profit organization dedicated to serving low income healthcare needs has compromised ethics?!
7
@Jane: you may need to have a word with @Yulia in this thread who seems to be commenting otherwise. Clearly the focus is on abortion in the minds of at least some of the supporters who wished to remove Dr Wen.
Ms. Wen suggests bringing a pop-gun to a nuclear war, in denial of just exactly what the war on women's rights actually means. Good luck with that.
8
History will look back on Planned Parenthood's decision as a moment when the organization took a decisive turn for the worse. The organization is now thoroughly progressivist--it's now just another political group busily attacking and alienating the "other." A sad day for women's health.
11
I believe history will judge PP as one of few brave organizations who stand for the women's rights when these rights were under brutal assault.
4
@richard cheverton:
"Progressivist"??
Yeah, god forbid we should have progress.
1
I believe the political strategy of Dr Wen was a good one. Abortion is a medical procedure.
But there are times when women find it necessary for personal reasons that are the business of no one else. When women come to these decisions, there should be guidelines, and there are. Roe vs Wade provides that abortion is not legal during the third trimester except to save the life of the mother or because the fetal condition is incompatible with life. That is not emphasized enough. Late term abortions do not occur except in these extreme situations. It is not legal otherwise. It is not done on a whim. It does not happen the way it is being described by people like Trump and Anti-Choice zealots.
As someone who works in a labor and delivery unit of a hospital, my experience has been that if there are conditions that do pose a significant risk to the mother in the third trimester, labor is induced or a C section may be performed after consulting Maternal Fetal Specialists. When a baby is born prematurely, accommodations are made to assist the baby to breathe and survive following a delivery. Not all those babies can or do survive, and it is only realistic for physicians to discuss possible outcomes with parents, including possible death of the infant due to prematurity, and their choices for possibility of end of life care.
Because the medical decisions that should only involve a woman and her doctor have been co-opted by politicians, abortion is political, like it or not.
8
The antidote to Trump is not vocal opposition from the far left to his divisive far right policies. It will come from the middle where Americans can be brought together rather than be pulled apart.
8
So, where was this middle when Trump came to power?
2
Dr Wen was a victim of Planned Parenthood's class composition. The people who run it are upper middle class suburbanites who don't care much about health care (not a problem for most of them) but who are obsessed with the illusion that "choice" is hallmark of free individuals. But "choice" is not freedom for those suffering from obesity, diabetes, health-illiteracy etc. Dr Wen's efforts to create a social conception of health and a less central place for abortion is unwelcome apparently.
10
And there are a plenty of clinics where she could practice her approach and help people with obesity, heart diseases, dental health and so on. PP is about family planning and to give the choice where is possible. Just because people don't have choice to become sick, doesn't mean we should deny all choices.
5
I can say with complete honesty that Wen's removal is for the absolute best. Wanting to reframe abortion services as the health issue it is was an entirely noble pursuit, but it absolutely ignores that about 1/3 of Americans do not want women (and children) to have access to any healthcare.
It was only months ago that Republicans allowed coverage for CHIP to lapse for completely political reasons; they held the health coverage for children hostage to achieve political means! They do that every day with women because, to Republicans, women are not autonomous humans capable of making medical decisions for themselves.
Wen's ideas are noble, but they have no place in the climate of American politics. If PPhood hadn't kicked her out the conservative branch of American politics would have swallowed her.
9
As a long time supporter of Planned Parenthood I have to object to Dr. Wen's characterization that PP was political and emphasized abortion over a broad range of women's health care. The Republican Party, the Catholic Church, and right wing extremists politicized Planned Parenthood and made abortion their central issue. Planned Parenthood, on the other hand, always emphasized their range of women's preventive services including reproductive choices, while they tried to hold on to providing abortion. I am unsettled by Dr. Wen's self-serving piece here - that she was hired to change PP and fired for changing PP. I think it was probably much more than that. In any event, I hope PP finds the right woman for the job going forward.
16
It was refreshing for me to read Dr. Wen's comments that do reflect my own beliefs. I am probably representative of a lot of silent voters out there who tend toward the more reasonable position of being in favor of some abortion restrictions, but preferring a focus on preventing pregnancies in the first place through access to contraception and women's health education. Pro-choice can go hand-in-hand with the right-to-lifers who wish to end abortions - just allow women access to adequate health care to prevent unnecessary pregnancies in the first place.
7
@Cecilia The perspective you describe here is a common one that fails to acknowledge the intimate lives of people actually seeking abortions. It is not a "reasonable" or middle-of-the-road position to want to place restrictions on access to abortion (although you don't specify what those restrictions should be); restricting abortion is an extreme political view that lacks the kind of compassion-in-action needed to make the world a better place for people having pregnancies.
I volunteered on an abortion unit as a nursing student. People came in for every possible reason and at many stages of pregnancy: they were on birth control but it had failed; they had thought they were infertile but weren't; they were in abusive relationships; their partner had left them at the news of the pregnancy and they knew that they couldn't manage a pregnancy or raise a child (or another child) alone. They discovered horrible fetal malformations during routine prenatal care. They had been diligent about birth control their whole lives but, just one time, they forgot. One woman's partner had just been killed in Iraq and she couldn't bear to raise his child without him.
None of these women deserved to be compelled to continue their pregnancies and, while I agree that birth control should be available everywhere, to everyone, it wouldn't have prevented many of these situations. The false progressivism of "some reasonable restrictions on abortion" is a cruelty masked as moderation.
6
They could, if anti-abortionists will drop they demands to outlaw abortions. Without that, I doubt pro- choice people could work with antiabortionists.
2
Having worked In family planning since 1970 soon after congressman George HW Bush cosponsored the legislation that finances these services, I think Dr. Wen is well meaning but extremely unrealistic for what has happened over the past half century. When President Reagan's administration started to attack the right to abortion in 1981, we were stunned to find that the target quickly became family planning organizations. Clearly it was because we were the most articulate, credible organizations that stood in their way - our standards of care require that women and girls be fully informed of all their options in order to make their own decisions about their pregnancies. We tried then - and have continued since - to convey to the public the enormous benefits of our reproductive health services and its impact on reducing the need for abortion. We have worked extensively with abortion opponents on other aspects of reproductive health care. But so long as we uphold the right of a pregnant woman or young girl to receive objective information from us, ideologues have always been immune to these pleadings. Sadly, family planning emerged from this first onslaught because a Democrat was elected president in 1992; another onslaught was resumed in 2000 when a Republican was elected president; then lifted in 2008 when a Democrat was elected president; then resumed in 2016 when a Republican was elected. Reason was drowned out long ago.
17
I can see why she was forced out. Planned Parenthood may wish to be a health organization, but it is first an foremost an abortion rights organization- the leading abortion rights organization in the country. And in a country with no abortion rights, Planned Parenthood will accomplish nothing that cannot be accomplished by any health clinic- which ALSO cannot perform abortions. Or encourage contraception. Or prevent women who miscarry from being arrested and prosecuted.
The best comparison I can think of is with a homeless advocacy organization that sees its primary mission as building houses, and keeps building them even as zoning laws are changed to prevent them from being occupied.
Wen was trying to change its focus away from abortion advocacy at exactly the time when that role became more important than ever before, and her track record was one of overall failure as a result. The fact that she chose to interpret the attempts to rally despite her failures as signs of success is galling- a leader who leaves you less powerful and more beseiged than ever may be unfortunate or unlucky rather than incompetent, but certainly has no business claiming credit for winning.
11
Thank you, Dr Wen and NY Times, for offering readers this thoughtful piece. I hope everyone reads it. Women’s healthcare should not be something that has self-styled progressive and right-to-fetal-life political activists shouting each other down at the expense of ordinary women and of common sense.
5
What should it be? A bunch of laws that takes health decisions seats from women?
While opposition to abortion is united, those for choice are now fragmented because of subtle differences in what 'choice' means. The anti-abortionists have succeeded in subdividing their opposition, to the detriment to women everywhere (including those who claim to be anti-abortion but obtain abortion anyway surreptitiously).
While I admire Leana's overall view, she cannot overhaul PP from the top without first developing broad support throughout that organization. I think PP is needed as a political organization to counter the 'lifers'.
5
@alaivan, Good point. There is no so-called nuance in deciding whether a woman has the right make this decision. And the willingness of the so-called 'left' to spend time in the gray areas does cost them. sigh.
1
@alaivan. If it’s a political organization, then it’s not caring for women’s health - its agenda becomes its purpose
2
It is if the women's health becomes a political issue.
Planned Parenthood has created it's own nightmare by refusing to be more moderate on abortion. When the video's of their executives joking about "baby parts" was released, they should simply have apologized for it, said it didn't represent who they were, and fired the providers instead of digging their feet in for all out war. This behavior antagonizes the silent majority of moderates and centrists, who believe in a women's right to an abortion within reason.
9
@XLER, Those videos were altered. 'within reason'....whose reason.
1
@XLER Wow. OK, where do I begin? First, you bring up the old, selectively edited Center For Medical Progress sting operation video that falsely presented Planned Parenthood as trafficking in baby parts, then you blame planned Parenthood for being an "extremist organization".
Then, in an environment in which (1) the vast majority of Americans support abortion rights to the exact extent that Planned Parenthood does and yet (2) a minority has successfully enacted effectively total abortion bans in state after state, you have the gall to claim that Planned Parenthood has failed to meet its opponents halfway.
You are parroting a centrist fantasy. If Planned Parenthood doesn't fight tooth and nail for abortion rights, there will be no abortion rights left at all.
2
Ms Wen has committed the ultimate sin of seeking common ground. Centrists are no longer allowed in our political system. They have no base and no organization. The idea of NOT treating those with whom we disagree with scorn and suspicion is anathema to the partisan cults of righteousness.
12
@Doubting
It is not that centrism isn't allowed in the USA anymore. It's that centrism does not exist. It's honestly very simple. We have been moved so right-wing that individuals (in this case, women) having autonomy and control over their own bodies is considered a LEFT-WING ideology. There is a sect of about 1/3 of Americans who don't believe women should have control over their health decisions because of religious ideology. "Let abortion be an option" shouldn't be a political issue because it doesn't mean you have to choose ot, but it is because of "Pro-Lifers" comingiling their religious views of control with their political duty as Americans without the introspection of maybe not everyone is their flavor (much less a flavor) of religious zealotry.
10
@Rose
"Religious zealotry!" Thanks for proving my and Dr. Wen's point about suspicion and scorn.
The enormous issue of women's right to choose is essentially political. Social control over women's sexuality and reproduction is long-standing. This is a tremendous political fight. The fight against federal funding of birth control is absolutely part of the fight against PP. It's not only abortion that some conservatives want to banish, it's also women's freedom to be sexually active. A long fight. PP is an army I'm proud to support. Women were controlled for a long long time. There are compulsory requirements for women in African countries separate from the Muslim religion. There are compulsory requirements for women in Muslim communities around the globe. Europe had a culture which called for the sacrificial lives of women in every class. Look at Opera, a pinnacle of European culture: women sacrifice themselves for men on almost every page. Rigoletto is probably the nastiest celebration of male privilege and thoughtlessness.
Women ARE SUPPOSED TO SACRIFICE themselves for their children and their man. But women no longer are willing to do so. Cultures are surprisingly resilient and the male dominance over females is long long long standing.
Fight on PP!!
11
Thank you for writing about your experience.I've been teaching sex education for 12 years. In the past couple of years, I've been thinking that Planned Parenthood needs to change direction and focus on teaching how not to get pregnant, and if you want to get pregnant, how to be healthy. Women do not have to get pregnant. LARCs work. Some are 99% effective. The number of unintended pregnancies go down when contraception is available. No one is ever going to win the abortion debate. To anti-choice people. women who abort their unborn children are murderers. But if a woman never gets pregnant in the first place, no murder has been committed. It's insane that in the 21st century we are even discussing terminating pregnancies when no unwanted pregnancies need to occur.
10
Planned Parenthood has always taught people about Birth Control, ie; “how not to get pregnant”. That has been its primary mission since its inception. Having the ability to delay pregnancy and space pregnancies to ensure a woman’s health and well being is what the original founder, Margaret Sanger fought for.
Unfortunately, that message has been diluted, primarily by political forces that are so set against abortion, that all the other services that Planned Parenthood provides do not get well publicized or acknowledged.
12
Even if no unwanted pregnancies ever occurred through the extended use of contraceptives in cases of consented sex (which is already a questionable thought in the light of the lack of access to sex and reproductive rights in the USA), I can think of other scenarios where abortion would still be needed. Rape is one of them. (Rapists don’t usually wear condoms). Incest is another. Risk of the mother’s life in case the pregnancy continues is another one. Detection of grave deformities of the fetus that would make its life outside the uterus impossible, or the perspective of a death within days or weeks of being born, is another. I find this comment strange considering the author claims to be a sex educator.
8
Uh...contraception isn’t always effective. And a lot of the people going after abortion rights have also gone after contraception, and if Roe goes, more will.
6
Dr. Wen underscores a serious problem on the left. Extremism in the defense of liberty is in fact a vice, when that extremism ends up ignoring the moral complexity of an issue and also is counterproductive, alienating would-be allies and strengthening the position of the extremists on the other side. That Dr. Wen was fired because she believes in engaging people who are not extremists, and thought that placing abortion within the larger context of women's healthcare was a more effective political strategy, is a sad but not surprising turn of events. Until the Democrats stop trying to match extremism with extremism, they will continue to lose support among those who support a woman's right to choose but would like the conversation to also take into account the interest of the fetus--at least after the point of viability.
13
@Hamilton Fish, Your comment reminds me of the way that many people look at the National Rifle Association. This group embodies extremist views on the right, insisting that guns should be available to everyone with no restrictions for local and state laws for appropriate background checks or registration. As with abortion, most people can find common ground on emotional issues if they discuss it rationally.
Demonizing people’s beliefs as being at the far end of the political spectrum does not move progress forward on common sense, middle of the road solutions.
4
While I very much sympathize with Dr. Wen’s decision, you are of course papering over what you actually mean by skipping ofer the extremism of those on the Right, and by “the interest of the fetus.”
You’re against abortion rights, is what you mean.
1
De-Politicization was a smart, long term plan. PP seems to be following the Democratic party down the activist rabbit hole.
What happens to a politicized organization that relies on public funds and government regulations if Trump wins? Or if Republicans take the house? Or to the women in deep blue state?
6
@Tom, The right is doing just fine through their activist activities. Why are the left's seen as extreme in response?
1
Planned Parenthood endorsed Clinton over Sanders in the 2016 primary season despite Sanders (and Clinton) having perfect voting records on their issues. Of course, endorsing the Democrat in the general election should have been done. Inserting itself into the nominating process was inappropriate. Dr Wen tried to make PP a relevant medical force. They suck at politics.
5
Abortion advocacy is not mission creep, it is action required to continue executing the core mission of preventing unwanted pregnancy.
It's called Planned Parenthood for a reason. To continue executing that plan, they can't allow someone else to order them to stop doing it.
2
Sad to see someone whose soul and being are so much in the right place be driven out by ideological firebrands - as if we don't have enough of that already. It reminds me of many years ago during the civil war in Lebanon a moderate emerged who spoke reason. He was promptly assassinated. Or when Roger Cohen in an editorial a few years back took time to reflect on the common humanity between Jews and Palestinians - he was mostly attacked by both sides. If you can't see reality beyond the intensity of your own feelings, don't expect to effectively solve its problems.
9
Whether pro life or pro choice. Just let the person decide for themselves. Get politics and the court out of this. If you are pro life? good for you. If pro choice good for you also. This should not even be a debate or a moral issue? women should decide either alone, or if they want with their husband, boyfriend whatever.
To much is made of this. The supreme court should not even be addressing that issue. Seems to me they don't care when the child is born, can not be clothed properly, fed or have a fighting chance in life. Please you politicians focus on issues that truly help the average American. Truth be told. The rich woman will always find a way to get that abortion. I had a friend in the 60s, her boyfriend flew her to a country where she got her abortion. This is really an attack on the poor who can not afford it.
3
Sounds pro choice. The courts are not there to advocate or approve abortion; only to protect our rights.
1
Those of us who are right of center were hoping for some moderation and small concessions from PP.
Sadly, we're disappointed.
When the vast majority of Americans believe whole-heartedly there ought to be some restrictions on 2nd and 3rd trimester abortions and that belief is met with disdain and disgust by the PP board? That's all America need to know that the PP agenda is radical and uncompromising in spite of clear scientific evidence about fetal viability.
Too bad they have pushed you out after 8 months. You had a bright future ahead of you. You could have done great things!!
In most corners, this is what's known as cruel irony (the timing).
7
This is just nonsense, Ms. Smythe. The fact is, a considerable majority want Roe kept pretty much as is, a goodly majority want abortion allowed at any time if the fetus isn’t viable or is terminally damaged, and only your people want abortion seriously restricted during the second trimester.
https://www.npr.org/2019/06/07/730183531/poll-majority-want-to-keep-abortion-legal-but-they-also-want-restrictions
You’re trying to pass off fairly-small restrictions as something else, and you’re just plain wrong about the trimesters.
Here’s what’s angering: people who won’t get the facts straight, who won’t get the science straight, and who constantly try to pass off their religious beliefs as science or philosophy that everybody agrees with.
2
Most people think of Planned Parenthood where abortions are the majority of their business. They should release a complete list of abortions that they have done over the last ten years. Are doctors paid more if they accomplish more abortions. Is there a bonus policy for hitting a set number of abortions? How much does Planner Parenthood make for every abortion done? Is there a list of doctors that have committed the most abortions for Planner Parenthood and their financial reward. Is eugenics still party of the philosophy for the founder of Planner Parenthood was a follower of Eugenics? With the morning after pill now available have abortions increased or decreased, and is this done for PP to make more money? Birth control pills, morning after pill, abortions should be down by at least 75% over a decade. If not Eugenics may still be the dominant force.
2
As a gay man, I identify many parallels between Dr. Wen’s measured approach about abortion care and the eventual passage of same-sex marriage. The latter—and high present-day polling numbers of people who accept and support LGBTQ+ people and same-sex marriage—was achieved through what some people would say was a moderate or even conservative approach. Rather than presenting to the public and to the Supreme Court the most radical members of the queer community, the cases brought forward quite normative-looking couples who sought the full legal benefits that accompany marriage. In one of the same-sex-marriage Supreme Court cases, a straight male lawyer represented the plaintiffs. Such an appeal was necessary to bring Justice Kennedy onboard and have a 5–4 ruling. I think the abortion movement could learn a lot from taking an approach that doesn’t alienate large groups of people but rather tries to demonstrate how abortion fits into the larger goal of health care, in particular for women and other historically marginalized groups.
17
I don't support abortion, especially when used as a contraceptive. I definitely don't support tax-funded abortion. However, I fully support constitutionally protected abortion rights.
I very much disliked Rudy Giuliani and his big mouth. I still dislike him. But when he said, "You can be pro-life and pro-choice at the same time," I believe he spoke the truth.
Dr. Wen spoke numerous times in interviews when she first entered the media scene, and I watched with care. Much like Dr. Fauci's media style, I was immediately impressed with Dr. Wen. I thought it was smart, refreshing, and brilliantly strategic to have a well-spoken doctor talk about this very serious health care issue, and she spoke from a health perspective and not as a political militant. I truly admired that, and wanted to hear more from her.
I think her leaving is huge mistake for the organization. I believe Dr. Wen was the right leader for this time. She should have had more support for the approach she was taking. She certainly spoke to discerning listeners like me.
12
I have always criticized the so-called “pro-life” movement/supporters for essentially and effectively being anti-life, along with being anti-woman, anti-Women of Color, and Anti-poor.
First, life cannot be conceptualized as intrinsically infinitely valuable while cutting funds and services for children or that directly impact children’s welfare, care, education and upbringing. This would include governmental programs that aid and support parents, child protective services, and the socioeconomically disadvantaged communities that cuts in social services always hit the hardest.
Second, if life is intrinsically infinitely valuable, then if enough reliable, rigorous, peer-reviewed studies show that the best ways to prevent abortion is through robust sex education in schools and easy, readily-available birth control, then the “pro-life” movement should embrace and promote both vehemently. The reliable, peer-reviewed evidence supporting the truth of both of the above realities is already beyond robust and only getting stronger by the year.
This highly suggests, if not incontrovertibly proves, that the “pro-life” movement is not really about saving the lives of unborn children, but something else entirely. It proves that what is actually going on is a war against women, Women of Color, and socioeconomically-disadvantaged women. It proves that this is a cultural war and not really about abortions at all. The “pro-life” movement is anything but and has never been.
8
I admire many of the people who work at Planned Parenthood,they are terrific.I worked there as a part time contractor at one time.The organization is not providing top teer care.They do provide care for many who would not be able to afford other alternatives.We should not accept but the best care especially for the poor I pray for the time that Planned Parenthood will close its doors forever and replaced by Medicare for All.
3
I’m sorry to hear that you were pushed out of Planned Parenthood, Dr. Wen. Your voice remains an important one for reproductive rights and, more specifically, marginalized women’s access to safe, affordable, and comprehensive health care/family planning services. Keep fighting for all of us!
11
The opposition between women who want to avoid appearing "political" and those who understand that everything, including women's health care, IS political is at least a century old, as evidenced by this excerpt from the 1915 satirical poem by Alice Duer Miller (also published today in a New York Times op-ed on The Algonquin Round Table) in which Miller makes light of women who want to avoid appearing "political" by speaking in their voice:
"They could not get it through their heads / That if they stayed tucked up in beds / Avoiding politics and strife / They’d lead a pleasant, peaceful life."
How ironic that Dr. Wen's plea not to be "political" and Miller's century old poem calling out women with such views for their naivete appear in the same edition of the Times.
12
It's really too bad, in my opinion. If PP is primarily an organization that provides comprehensive healthcare and sometimes provides abortion services as many claim, her approach was refreshing. I feel a completely radical switch to getting out of the abortion clinic business altogether would certainly make abortion rights a much harder target to find, and would do more to truly normalize healthcare decisions between a woman and her doctor.
2
It will be much more easy to target abortions because it would be not so visible.
2
I think that one of the major problems we have today is the very hard and fast positions people take on issues. As with most events all of these are not black and white but many shades of gray. We must understand that in order to include all of us compromise is necessary.
I find the right wing types refuse to listen to any discussions about climate change, ignore all the facts as i see them, and then the liberals do the same with GMO foods. Both sides become very resistant to any others point of view. We need to change this.
2
And what compromise do you propose? Some times compromise looks like a complete surrender.
The titles (the tribal labels) of PP and NRA have separated themselves from discussion. They have become totemic symbols. Acronyms standing for two phrase names that evoke unreasoning passions in those that march against them.
The faithful (the worthy) of each tribe now must adhere to unwavering conviction in the rights guaranteed in their charters and professed reasons for being. They must abide in their faith and that the members of the other are all that is wrong in the nation. It is they who are destroying the society our forbears worked so hard to bequeathed us.
It's no wonder both institutions are experiencing crises in leadership and in what their missions are all about. They both have become the extreme institutional sides of the same coin. Both are succumbing to the irresistible human urge to separate themselves into tribal groups, build mythologies of conviction and then gather together to blame the other for their problems. Tribal names become war cries filling the minds of their foes.
I pity anyone trying to take the reins of the PP or NRA with visions of transformation at this point. Both organizations are held hostage to the brands their names and beliefs have attached to their identities. Compromise has become synonymous with betrayal of core belief. Both institutions, in thrall to their righteous convictions and reputations, have become the obtuse secret double agents of their own failure.
7
I love to hear compromise that will satisfy everybody and doesn't look as a complete surrender. Slavery existed so long in this country because of compromise, it required the civil war in order to cancel that shameful practice. I guess we should admit sometimes compromise are not possible.
3
@yulia
"I love to hear compromise that will satisfy everybody and doesn't look as a complete surrender."
This is an excellent example of the impossible demand that can end up being reason for tribal violence. Can't satisfy everybody and any compromise looks like complete surrender. To prove it cite Civil War and slavery. Then guess that sometimes compromise isn't possible. Truly motivated reasoning and confirmation bias in action. Thank you for illustrating so succinctly the tribal thinking I was speaking to.
2
@Gowan McAvity I did illustrate my point, can you illustrate yours?
Donations have been down and opposition to abortion has been increasing. This does not make for a successful operation at Planned Parenthood. More people are now viewing abortion as morally wrong and are speaking out against it.
The movie "Unplanned" was a blockbuster hit for a pro life movie. There are very few made and the makers of this film were very brave to take this chance. It was about a Planned Parenthood employee, Abby Johnson, who left the organization and switched to the pro life side. This movie made $18 million in revenue and was responsible for gaining new pro life members. Advertisers refused to promote this movie on TV but succeeded by word of mouth promotion instead. I do not think this movie helped Planned Parenthood's image.
They really need to get out of the abortion business and help women with healthcare. Abortion is not healthcare. It is the taking of innocent human life.
3
I guess the key words 'for pro-life movie'. I didn't even heard about this movie by any means. Abortion is a health care for born women, who don't want to have babies at certain point of their life, because it will interfere with their physical and emotional health.
5
Yulia,
You did not hear about the movie "Unplanned" because there was no advertising for it. In spite of the refusal for advertisers to promote this excellent movie, it did very well at the box office. Word of mouth resulted in it being a hit. It was powerful and changed many hearts and minds against abortion. More people are opposed to abortion today than ever before.
3
@KMW Well, I looked at its rating, and it was right in the middle of other unremarkable movies. It did get 18 mln, but Uglydolls (another movie I've never heard) got 20 mln. It is maybe more people opposed abortion, but still there are 55% who opposed the "heartbeat laws" and 73% oppose to closing all facilities providing abortion. Actually, abortion support is very stable. 25% supports abortion with no restriction now, 25% supported it in 1996, 53% supported it with restriction now, 53% supported it in 1980 (it was 52% in 1996); 21% wishes to make abortion illegal, 21% wished the same in 1985 (although in 1996 there was 17% of such)
1
I agree with a lot of what she says, BUT I never found her to be a good voice for the organization. She simply was not “good in public.” I remember seeing her on TV and thinking, “She’s no Cecile Richards. And Richards is what they need, not Wen.” I doubt anyone involved will say this, but Wen is simply not a good spokesperson, even for what she sees as the future path - which is not a bad path to travel. They really need someone else, perhaps with the same message but a different voice.
5
@Citizen of the Earth
I agree, and feel strongly that Richards had a duty to wait until after the 2020 elections before stepping down.
4
She’s a difference voice from Cecile’s. She starts and ends with her patients and how it affects their lives. I found it very compelling, because it’s so different from the political pundits out there.
But to each their own.
12
It seems a simple matter to view the decision to have a child in the context of what the child will encounter if born. The prospective mother has a very important grasp of this issue, and its long-term aftermath.
In contrast, most anti-abortion arguments consider the prospects for a future child as irrelevant to the decision of committing an embryo to the predictable predicament that will become its life.
7
Planned Parenthood needs a representative who is capable both of advocating for women’s health and navigating the political reality that a fundamental aspect of reproductive freedom is under attack. What makes this so difficult? PP is a courageous organization. It deserves a dynamic and courageous leader who can communicate and advocate on women’s behalf in the face of dire challenges.
8
“The best way to protect abortion,” she wrote, “is to be clear that it is not a political issue but a health care one.”
This seems to me to be the crux of the issue. Planned Parenthood disagrees with her, and this is why she was let go. Yes, abortion is a health issue, and Planned Parenthood provides a broad range of women's health services. But the name of the organization implies its mission. Planned Parenthood is there to support women in being able to control how and when they become parents - this right is what is at issue. Fundamentally, the point of debate is where should the line be drawn on where the government can regulate and control an individual woman's reproductive decisions. Yes, PP provides other services besides pregnancy termination, but they center around reproduction. The fact that Dr. Wen included treatment of asthma and colds in PP literature, which PP does not provide, shows clearly what her strategy was, to minimize the political aspect of PP. Planned Parenthood in many ways is a civil rights organization that defends the constitutional rights of women in the area of reproduction.
This is the bone of contention - not one with a clear answer to many, but a political and legal one. To pretend that it is a medical one is disingenuous, ultimately bound to fail, and recognized as such by anti-abortion organizations who have clearly stated they will not accept such a re-branding.
7
Perhaps Ms. Wen will consider running for president some time soon. She is exactly the type of highly-educated, moderate, persuasive and grounded leader our country sorely needs.
6
I'm reminded of the old feminist rally, "The personal is political." Nowhere is this more true when our bodies are legislated by hysterical lawmakers and their misogyny, weaponized religion and miserably uninformed medical knowledge. Finding common ground for personal health care in the morass of all these political machinations will be nearly impossible.
9
Abortion is not healthcare. How can one call it healthcare when an unborn baby is the victim of this procedure. We have seen far too many abortions in America and people are finally beginning to speak out against this.
I am a pro life woman active in the movement and am one of millions around the country who opposes abortion. We see an immorality and inhumanity in abortion and will continue to speak out against this devastating practice. There are two victims each time an abortion is performed - a woman and her baby. This truth must be revealed.
2
@KMW
If progressives had their way, there would be far more education about pregnancy prevention, greater access to contraception, and far less need for abortions.
11
“People are finally beginning to speak out about this”? You must be very young, or uninformed on this issue. Many of us were here in 1973 when abortion was legalized, and I can promise you, anti-abortionists have been speaking out loudly and sometimes violently ever since. What I wish people in the pro-life movement would acknowledge is the immorality of forcing a woman to give birth against her will. The ugly story “pro-life” people must tell themselves to make this ok is not reality. Each woman knows her own life and capabilities and the circumstances of the pregnancy. The truth is only she and the ones she trusts in this decision can rightfully make the choice to have a child. I’d like to reveal this truth: NO ONE is pro-abortion. I wish lives were perfect and there was no such thing as an unwanted pregnancy. But here in the real world bad things happen. Pregnancies can easily be ended in the first trimester before there is any viability. It happens in nature all the time. Making it into a crime is inhumane and misguided.
12
Ms Wen was fired not because she was facilitating ‘mission creep’ but because she was trying to arrest it. The name of the organization is ‘Planned Parenthood’, not ‘Abortion Advocacy’.
103
@Craig Root: It's called "Planned" Parenthood for a reason. You can't plan something if someone else is telling you what you can or can't do.
Preventing unwanted pregnancy is a core mission, not mission creep. What's changing is the actions necessary to continue executing that core mission.
41
@mlbex Yet, the name includes the word "parenthood". Parenthood is also a viable choice at Planned Parenthood, right? So why not be interested in the health of the whole woman? Its not called Planned Abortion. That is the point.
14
@Jonathan Butcher: The word "Plan..." does not preclude any choice, like you say. Do you believe that they aren't interested in the rest of womens' reproductive health just because they're advocating against being forbidden to use one of their tools?
24
This article in titled, "Why I Left Planned Parenthood" The author later writes, "But in the end, I was asked to leave for the same reason I was hired..." So which was it? Did she resign or was she fired. Or was it mutual?
1
She was fired. She didn't quit. This essay is a face-saving one. The truth, however you season the sandwich, is that PP is a health care organization. Abortion is a health care choice some women make. PP needs a leader who stands up to bigotry, religious fundamentalism, and wannabe tyrants like the ones who wish to outlaw a woman's right to abortion. Many of us who are not women will open our wallets to underground resistance and clinics if abortion is outlawed. If abortion is outlawed, of course only outlaws will have abortions. Millions of righteous women will become outlaws. I'll stand with them. You should stand with them, too.
14
Seems to me that planning to be a parent includes planning good health practices for the parent as well as the child, because if the parent is in poor health, parenthood is a lot harder.
I don't get at all what Planned Parenthood is doing here with firing Leanna Wen. Every time I heard her speak she was effective and compelling.
4
I guess general physicians should renamed themselves as 'planned parenthood specialists'.
1
I heard Dr. Wen speak at the opening of a new PP clinic in my city recently. This new clinic was long overdue to replace the previous location (which was unable to offer abortion services), and I was heartened to see how nice the new facility was. But when I saw the fortress-like security necessary for a medical facility that provides abortions, and witnessed the harassment that its workers must endure on a daily basis, I understood that there is no way to eliminate the political element.
Any yet, I walked into a facility that I could envision myself returning to for care. When I heard Dr. Wen speak, her message resonated with me. I was inspired by the holistic focus on women's health, with a clear stance that access to abortion is a part of that.
The reality is, if you're an uninsured woman with limited income, there aren't a lot of options for quality women's health care. PP is a crucial resource. Perhaps it would be ideal if they could focus exclusively on the one service that will not be de-politicized anytime soon, but we need them for all the other services too.
I don't know if Dr. Wen was the right person for the job, but it seems evident that PP serves in a role that is vital to women's access to affordable health care. I hope whoever comes next acknowledges that.
11
Statistically, the southern states passing draconian anti-abortion laws also have the highest rates of sexually transmitted diseases. Hmmmmm. ALL health care for women is political because politicians and male-backed political groups have promoted ignorance and opposed educating women or providing medical treatment to women for a few hundred years. These anti-woman movements often center on birth control, sex education, and abortion. But, also, women receive less care in for heart attacks, black women receive less breast cancer care, the newborn death rate in this country is very high, and so on. The fact is, we need a political movement to demand quality healthcare for all women, regardless of income, and need to treat the entire woman, including sex education, birth control, birthing, and abortion.
9
No matter how carefully one chooses their words, it will wind up being twisted to mean something other than what is meant. Did I say that right?
1
I still don't get why you left Planned Parenthood. Are you saying you left because you were nice to people that didn't like abortion and still supported it in dangerous pregnancies? There is a chunk of something missing in this article.
1
She left because she was fired.
2
I completely agree with her. Planned Parenthood will continue to lose battles and access to abortion continue to shrink as long as abortion access is not presented and advocated for as part of comprehensive women’s healthcare.
7
It is already represented like that. Doesn't stop antiabortionists to attack it?
1
I appreciate Dr. Wen's explanation, because now I understand and support why she was asked to leave. For too long, women have avoided "politics" because they erroneously interpret the political arena as "aggressive" and "confrontational." Dr. Wen's description of building diverse coalitions IS political. The fact that she is shying away from calling it that tells me something about her. I would not want her leading the fight for my basic human rights.
12
Mission creep is not necessarily a bad thing. The March of dimes nearly dissolved when polio was cured but they realized they could continue to work for healthy mothers and children. I’m very much pro choice. While abortion is a complex issue, women’s health is something we should all be able to support. Planning when or if to have a child greatly affects a woman’s health. I’m sad that abortion is still being used as a wedge issue to divide us and make it harder to achieve the goal of good healthcare for all.
8
Thank you Doctor for your effort, but you'll get no sympathy (even grudgingly) from those who should support you. They do see this, as do the opposition Republicans as political to the core.
For those two groups it is a battlefield without nuance, without any agreed issues, and minds are closed. One side says life begins at conception and few to no abortions should be allowed and the other (to the dismay of this moderate Dem) says taking the life of a late term baby is strictly a woman's choice for any reason or none at all. This means making infanticide possible and legal.
As Dr. Wen says the majority of Americans support a wide variety of reproductive services. But you'll find no majority, not even close who think aborting a healthy viable late term baby, without substantial health defects or conditions, is anything other than infanticide. This writer will not go down that slippery slope.
We agree fully with Dr. Wen’s philosophy and measured political approach to building a national consensus around the right to safe, medically-assisted abortion as an important component of women’s health care and essential to women’s right to self-determination without intrusive government involvement in the most personal of decisions. We are deeply concerned that by subjecting our leaders to litmus tests of ideological purity—especially on maximalist positions on the further extremes of the leftward spectrum—we miss opportunities to engage and persuade Obama/Trump voters and other more centrist constituencies that are essential to any effort to build durable majorities that can pass and enforce laws to protect, rather than restrict, women’s rights to abortion access. Dr. Wen’s thoughtful, rational approach to frame this as an issue in terms of both healthcare and personal freedom is the best strategy—shouting into the liberal echo chamber convinces no new supporters and generates no new voters. Planned Parenthood is losing its most important allies and potential allies.
8
Her strategy is perfect for those who want to outlaw abortion while nobody is looking.
The right wing has politicized everything, leaving no defensible middle ground. If you advocate for this as a health care issue, you will be steamrolled.
One faction will have its way. The other will not. That's not the right way to do things, but that's how it will stay until the moderate Republicans (if there are any left) take back their party's agenda, giving moderate Democrats a reason to take back the microphone from the radical left.
3
It sounds like Dr. Wen's death blow in her job as CEO of PP was when she "reached out" to pro life advocates. Theoretically it sounds nice to try to communicate with the enemy, but in today's hyper charged political environment that is not possible. That would be similar to the Union asking General Lee how things were going in the south. Also, the history of physicians making the switch from doctor to administrator is fraught with failure. Most physicians do not have the people skills and patience to run a large organization without offending people because clinicians are used to making a decision, writing the order, and it's done. It's not that simple when dealing with multiple people and their agendas. Being a PP donor and retired healthcare administrator, we need political fighters who can fend off Trump and the Republican neocons who want to overturn Roe, and unfortunately Wen was not fighting them head on.
6
There's more agreement here than it first appears. Abortion is about health care. But the protection of the right to have one is political. These are not mutually exclusive. The differences expressed in the comments, albeit important ones, are ultimately about tactics, not about what we believe.
7
I admire and agree with Dr. Wen's position that abortion is ultimately a health care issue as are all procedures involving reproduction. Why did the Planned Parenthood board who hired her expect her to be a politician when that is not her area of expertise. She is a public health expert first and foremost.
6
Everything is political in life. There are just different kinds of politics— the no holds barred, moral absolutism of the extremes—at BOTH ends of the distribution curve—or the politics of conciliation and cooperation that Dr. Wen advocates—to her great credit—and that embraces the vast majority in the middle.
I can’t speak to the Right, that’s not my tribe, but I can comment on the Left where I’ve felt at home my entire life. Progressives today are angry and embittered; I understand that. Times have been tough, and the Republicans want to impose a fascistic model of governance on the country we love.
But that doesn’t justify the self-righteous sense of victimhood embraced by so many on the Left. "But they do it…" has become their rallying cry, leading them to adopt the mindset and tactics of the Right. It is exactly the wrong way to foster change. It merely reinforces the polarization at the root of our problems.
It also reflects an ignorance of how political movements like Trumps’ populism work, how they wax and wane. Once Trump is gone, the fever will break, and millions in the Center who hopped on the train while it was moving, will return to moderation, leaving only a small minority of embittered, hardcore, true believers, now marginalized by society.
The way to fight Trump and Trumpism is to go for broke to win in 2020, both national and local races. That requires pulling in the moderate center, not pulling up the drawbridge. Then all dreams will become possible.
4
This piece quivers on the edge of incoherence. If we lived in a different world then it would be fine to suggest that planned parenthood should be depoliticized, if only. But this is like a brewery organization saying that they dont want to be politicized so they were going to step away from opposing prohibition. Planned Parenthood can simply abandon the provision of abortion services and embrace the Religious Right. I see this happening in National Geographic magaizine where they were purchased by Rupert Murdoch and now have gone from spreading scientific literacy to pushing religious fundamentalism. But as long as Planned Parenthood wants to continue to support reproductive rights it simply can't be non-political in the face of those who wish to destroy it. I am glad you have been asked to resign and have done so.
4
Women seeking justice during the Women's Liberation Movement coined the phrase "The personal is political." Women and children's health care IS political. It's tragic that a half century later, there are women who still don't realize that. Dr. Wen's description of building coalitions with diverse views for practical ends is called "realpolitik." Perhaps she was asked to leave because she doesn't have a sophisticated understanding of politics or history.
5
What an unfortunate distraction from Planned Parenthood's critical mission to protect reproductive rights - not just for women, but for the co-equally responsible men as well. In light of Dr. Wen's very different views of the organization's mission, one wonders why she was hired. One also wonders about her need to double down in public on her differences with the organization she was tasked to lead and defend, something no departing CEO should do. I hope all those who understand how crucial Planned Parenthood is to prevent an American Handmaid's Tale is will not temper their support because of this HR failure.
8
this is a profoundly disappointing, self serving piece.
you do far more to erode support for an organization that does so very much for so many in need.
6
The sad irony here is that in both situations being highlighted, (i.e., the conflicts on the one hand between abortion rights advocates and anti-rights advocates, as well as the conflict within P.P), we can see what has become a fatal flaw in the human psyche. That flaw is the propensity toward dualism, black and white, us vs. them mentality. This may have been useful eons ago in human evolution, but it’s killing us now. It’s the elephant in the room, controlling everything but never mentioned. In the early days of the women’s movement and in other places and times, we tried to transcend this, to recognize that the process determines the outcome, and to be inclusive rather than divisive. That struggle continues. I don’t know the details of what happened within P.P., but on the surface there doesn’t seem to be any reason these 2 views are not compatible. Why can’t there be people within the organization who can support either or both of the stated goals without “winner take all”? Oh yes, that sounds laughably naïve, and I submit that that is precisely because we all understand and accept the tragic and destructive limitations of our human minds and hearts.
3
The reality in America today, is that science has become a political and religious issue. Where republicans are willing to conflate evidence based science with myth based religion specifically Christianity. It was naive of Dr. Wen to believe that this country’s politicians were mature enough to separate religious beliefs from science. After all the Times, just this week reported that many of our republican congressional representatives have adopted Trump’s name calling and sophomoric behavior as a political strategy. The Trump administration also plans to purge the USDA of real scientists by forcing them all to move to Missouri or quit. We have a long road ahead of us before we reach the level of understanding Dr. Wen believed we had achieved.
5
While I respect Dr. Wen and what she tried to do, her plan to change the culture of Planned Parenthood was based on a faulty assumption-- that there is political neutrality in the concept of health care access. I wish that she was correct, that health care was just a normalized, general right. But, the entire matter of health care is politicized in the U.S. When you include gender, affordability, and inclusive, wholistic services, it is even more so. First, we must change a culture where women's bodies are treated as the property of the state. Reducing women's health needs to essentialize fetus nurturance is a problem that both sides share. Planned Parenthood did not create this problem by itself. Second, that many of the same legislators who voted for the restrictive abortion laws to protect the barely conceived in seven states are also in favor of post-birth immigrant children being detained in squalor blows part the argument about protecting children and good health care. In the end, ideologies, rights, and the fetuses are protected by both sides more fervently than are post-birth children and women.
6
This is a thoughtful piece, and no doubt Dr. Wen is an excellent physician. This approach would possibly work in other countries with other political realities-- but not here, not now.
There is no compromise when it comes to allowing women to safe access to abortion. As the (apropos) saying goes: you can't be a little bit pregnant. Either you are all in on the fight for reproductive rights in this day and age, when clinics are closing in droves and women are being prosecuted for incidental harm to their fetuses, or you are not. If you are not, then it's best to step aside.
9
PP did not politicize abortion, the R party did.
The good doctor's timing was off.
In a different political climate, with fewer angry old men running the show (and trying to control women's bodies) the doctor might have settled nicely into her new job,
Alas, PP (and women) need a fierce warrior, not a smart doctor, at the helm.
9
This is a well written and carefully considered article. To deny that abortion is an issue that presents moral complexities is deny the very essence of human life. Most people of good will on both sides of the issue understand this. It's too bad that the governing body of Planned Parenthood seems to be more interested in engaging in partisan warfare than providing women with a wide range of necessary health care services including safe access to abortion.
4
Really? I thought it is exactly for what they were criticised - for providing access to safe abortions, in much less degree for providing contraception.
1
I am sure Dr. Ren is an excellent doctor and public health official but she was the wrong person for Planned Parenthood. Bascially she wanted to compromise and soften the mission of PP when it is under attack. There is no mythical middle ground on abortion, either it is legal and accessible or it is not. Either a woman decides to have an abortion or the government decides for her. The vast majority of those opposed to abortion also oppose increased access to birth control and financial support of babies born to women who do not have resources. Her odd claim that the fact that more laws were passed expanding abortion rights than in any previous year shows she is either clueless or disengenuous . Those laws were passed in desperation in heavily blue states as a defense against the possibility of the federal government trying to outlaw it , it was in no way a sign of PP success.
7
if only Planned Parenthood and reproductive health could be depoliticized! But its not PP that makes it political, it is the determined, relentless opposition of religious zealots to a women's right to access birth control and abortion that makes it political, and this columns seems to seek to disarm the pro-choice side only. In Rhode Island the political wing of PP and allies managed to pass a law protecting reproductive rights, if they hadn't done that they would all be at risk from the judges the Trump regime is appointing to pander to the zealots. Perhaps her column should have been directed to the various churches that have become so so political on this issue!
7
Abortion IS a stand alone issue. The only time I went to planned parenthood (or ever considered it) was for an abortion. I was really happy that Planned Parenthood existed. For any other health problem, reproductive or otherwise, there are other (neighborhood) clinics & hospitals.
4
@Jenifer Wolf I think planned parenthood encompasses a lot more abortion. Prevention is 95% of the cure for this whole debate.
4
I've gone to many PP clinics over the years, but I've never had an abortion. I always went for pap smears and to get an Rx for birth control pills. It was the most convenient choice.
I never knew Planned Parenthood' was anything other than an abortion clinic. Its leftist supporters did a great job in selling its mission as a place where women could terminate pregnancy. Idealogues on the left and right are equally blind. Why not inform the public on all the important health care PP provides women. Dr. Wen is obviously a pragmatist and her goal to make the organization less political was smart. Abortion is a political issue; but it's silly of the leadership of PP to keep emphasizing that divisive issue rather than just going about their work and educating the public on all the other important services it provides. But ideologues mean to be divisive, even those on the Left.
3
Because all other services could be provided by other clinics. Abortion is the service that is provided mostly by PP. If they will not talk about that how people who need abortion will find them?
1
This has never been about healthcare - this has always been about power. Power over people, over women. The arguments used to justify this crusade for power have used religion, morality, and health - but none of them have ever truly been about those things - it's always been about power. To fail to recognize this fundamental truth is to guarantee you will never succeed.
12
Nope, its about the dignity of human life. Listening is as important as simplistic pontificating.
Considering how viciously Planned Parenthood is attacked from the outside, it is more than a little worrying to witness its internal battles.
1
It is a false argument to say that as a nation we can find common ground on the health care of women and children when we live in a nation that purposefully underfunds child care, education and makes women’s health care more expensive than men’s. The fundamental premise of her argument is just wrong. Health care is a political issue - Presidents from John Adams, FDR to Obama understood this too. So does Trump and the mostly old while male GOP - rather they see it as a weapon of paternalism.
9
"Health care is a political issue - Presidents from John Adams, ..."
Where did John Adams say anything about "health care"?
1
Didn't he sign up the Act for relief of sick and disable seamen in 1798?
Thank you for the article. I still believe in common ground. Let's all be Pro-Health and define that as a private conversation between doctor and patient.
2
Dr. Wen’s rude dismissal has cost Planned Parenthood my donations. Defense of this dismissal my cost Democrats my vote. The abortion issue was one of the many reasons why I enthusiastically supported Hillary Clinton. I am pro-abortion as part of the comprehensive reproductive healthcare for women. And of course, as I a rational and ethical person I refuse to subscribe to the Republican cult of the fetus. Democrats stood for rationality, science and human rights and I was proud to give them my donations and my vote. Since then, I saw the Democratic Party descend into ideological frenzy, virtue-signaling, defense of socialism, and flirting with anti-Semitism. But I still continued to support Planned Parenthood. Not anymore. If this organization wants to make reproductive freedom a partisan issue by humiliating an immigrant, a woman of color and a scientist, I will have nothing to do with them. Democrats are destroying themselves by tying reproductive freedom and women’s healthcare to a slew of controversial political issues because they alienate the educated, independent, suburban women who brought them the victory in 2018.
7
I think you’ve missed a fundamental point, and that is, this hire was not a fit. It’s on the board that they didn’t make a good hire. That said, given how she was drumming all of the experienced staff out, they made the right call to end her employment before the organization was decimated.
4
I guess some Democrats are just Rep- lite, that's why they are want the status quo. Of course, the times change, and status quo is not enough to win the political battle, as 2016 showed us.
I don't know whether Dr. Wen was or was not good for Planned Parenthood.
One thing I am sorry to see in the reporting on this issue (obviously it would not be in this opinion piece but elsewhere in the media) is the lack of coverage of why the board hired her in the first place. I have the impression that Dr. Wen's priorities were no secret and should have been a surprise to no one. If that's right, presumably there was a significant view at the time she was hired that Wen's direction was the right direction. It would be nice to hear from those people on PP's board.
In any case, I will continue to support PP. It's a terrific organization.
11
Dr. Wen’s vision for that organization was spot on. It’s problem is one of brand positioning which sets it up for political attack. You can see this clearly simply by going to the website. First and foremost, front and center is abortion. The organization itself emphasizes this as their primary service and purpose. PP is a great organization and essential to women’s health and even men too (a stronger balance is needed there as well). In repositioning the organization more towards its mission of providing reproductive health care, they would weaken attacks against them while fulfilling their mission.
5
Important opinion piece. I contributed to Planned Parenthood(& the SPLC) for many years but ceased when they both become more involved in politics than service. Dr Wen could have guided PP through the Trump years to a sane place where abortion is “legal & rare”. Exactly what most Americans support.
4
It’s too bad that abortion is about politics, but it is. You’ll do well in your next endeavor.
4
Once again, the Left eats its own.
5
Abortion involves choice.
I hope all the readers and commenters have thanked their mothers for choosing not to abort them.
3
@Mon Ray
Why would I do that? My mother made the reproductive decisions that were right for her. If she had chosen abortion I would not be here to care. She had three children but could have had many more. I am sure if she had ten, they would have been glad to be here, but she had no obligation to do so.
5
@Mon Ray
And I hope all the "pro-lifers" feel comfortable looking their mothers in the eye and say that they believe that she should be forced gestate and give birth against her will, and that they believe she does not have the right to make decisions about her own health and body. I hope you look her in the eye and tell her you think she has less rights to her body than a corpse does.
Let me know how that goes!
Lucy H, -
I am very glad indeed, that my teenaged and unmarried mother, did not abort me.
It was her choice.
1
Right on! I agree with you.
By defining and limiting female choice regarding reproduction, sexual relations, emotional, mental and physical health to 'abortion' the divine natural equal certain unalienable rights of the one and only biological DNA genetic procreative gender with eggs, ovaries, mammary glands, a clitoris, a vagina, a placenta and a uterus is denied.
Until the discovery of DNA, paternity, unlike maternity was always in doubt. And a fetus is clearly not a person within the meaning of the American Constitution. No matter what natural biological science and supernatural sectarian theology say to the contrary.
2
Thanks, Dr. Wen, for sharing your thoughts on this episode. Planned Parenthood seems political. It claims to be a health care organization with breadth and not just a one-stop full-service abortion clinic. Its operations and all politics all the time says otherwise.
There is much to be admired in this single issue, one service stance; however, I think your approach would have been the best long term. Why longer term, as many comments indicate and you know, it takes lots of time to shift the focus of any organization.
In our society, no one right stands alone to the exclusion of all others. Free speech isn't totally without constraints. Freedom of religion has limits. So too, it must be with a woman's right to chose. Society has good reasons to consider the life of the unborn. At what point is more debatable than absolute. To take the position of no debate and no limits on a woman's right to chose, Planned Parenthood challenges the very notion of having any society imposed restrictions. All other rights are circumscribed. Planned Parenthood stands alone by insisting that there are no limits to a woman's right to chose, even after a live delivery.
Talking with those who disagree is a good idea, now dead. Becoming a Woman's Health Center is a good idea, now tossed for the battle for an absolute right.
The battles over this issue will continue, to the detriment of life and the ultimate success of planned parenthood. You tried, they failed your test.
3
In a perfect world, abortion would only be a health problem. However, the history of this procedure has been entwined with religion and male dominance over women. You cannot separate the two. Until politicians and judges leave women to their own bodily decisions there will be a fight. Choice needs leadership by those who will demand choice!
7
While I admire Dr. Wen and have appreciated her effort and expertise, both here in Baltimore and nationwide, I have to object.
"Common Ground" was the name of a movement in the late 80s/early 90s. It sought to do exactly what Dr. Wen is advocating here.
And it tanked.
The problem is that abortion -- and even contraception -- are de facto political. They cannot, in this country, be treated as merely another part of women's health care. They've been made political by the scores of people trying to deny them. My god, physicians have been murdered over these issues.
I also must disagree with Dr. Wen's contention that PP has spent too much time advocating for abortion/contraception and not enough for all the other many healthcare procedures PP clinics provide. I would say the opposite is true. It's almost impossible to read a statement from Planned Parenthood anywhere in the past 30 years without copious mention of mammograms, pap smears, blood tests, prenatal care, mental health help, addiction treatment, you name it.
PP has been doing brave, noble work under the most horrendous conditions -- conditions created by a brutal, theistic cadre of the GOP determined to put us all in a real-life version of "The Handmaid's Tale." Common Ground ain't gonna cut it.
505
@Lisa Simeone
Thank you for articulating the crux of this matter!
42
@Lisa Simeone
You're straw-manning her argument. According to the article, her goal was to bring nuance into the complex abortion debate, while putting the focus on the actual services PP provides. For the millions of people like me who are pro-choice but have some reservations about the moral questions of abortion, this made me a stronger supporter of PP. By ostracizing Wen, PP will lose the support of millions across the US and make progress harder.
43
@Evan
Can not agree. When states can and are enacting laws that prohibit abortion no matter what and in some cases restricting contraception under the guise of religious freedom this is political. Being old (75) I remember all too well what it was like before Roe vs Wade. I doubt that anyone “likes” abortion. As the saying goes if you can’t trust me with the choice how can you trust me with a child.
68
As the Times has recently reported, many Americans support a policy akin to what Bill Clinton once described: that abortion should be safe, legal, and rare.
I'm among them.
Although I'll always support a woman's right to choose, it's always bothered me that Planned Parenthood hasn't emphasized this enough.
I've been on their mailing list for years and get ongoing appeals for donations, which always stress the need, above all else, to support abortion access for all. However, these appeals say comparatively little about making abortion unnecessary, and preventing unwanted pregnancies in the first place.
I wish they had, as maybe the debate would not have become as polarized as it is today, and our rights not in danger of being revoked.
4
@KF I believe the vast majority of PP patients rely on the organization for the health care and contraceptives provided. Abortions are a small percentage of their work. Fund raising to protect abortion is necessary due to the unrelenting attacks.
4
@KF. They provide sex education and contraceptives so, yes, they do work towards ending unwanted pregnancy.
3
@KF - Maybe it's that when one is up to one's tuchas in alligators, the swamp becomes less important.
PP has had their hands full keeping their doctors alive, their clinics from being bombed and fighting off the (R)egressives' Forced Birth political campaigns. Why also emphasize pregnancy prevention, when (R)s fight contraception tooth and nail?
(R)egressives don't sex education, they don't want contraception, they don't want abortion, and they don't want to provide human services to children after they're born. They leave no room for common ground or reasonable discussion.
4
Sadly, there is no room on this issue for rational debate. As a moderate Democrat of the “safe, legal, and rare” philosophy on abortion, I too am being shunned by extremists in my party who refuse to recognize any moral issue in the abortion debate. That extremism is convincing me little by little that holding my nose and voting Republican may be the way to go. Yes, it is that important an issue for many of us. A sad outcome because there is some common ground that the right/left share on this issue. Maybe after the next Trump Supreme Court judge the left will finally come around.
135
@Armas I think you are mistaken. Of course we all recognize the moral issues. For me the moral issue is this: Does a woman control her body or does the state control her body? That seems to be an issue that the anti-abortion folks seem to ignore.
178
@Armas
I fully agree that there's a need for nuance, and that while I'm pro-choice, the pro-life position is rational and defensible. However, I don't see how you get from "safe, legal, and rare" to voting for Republicans, whose current positions is "prohibited for all cases".
240
I also believe in “safe but rare”, and I believe the majority of Democrats and Republicans agree. However, the radical side of the Republican party has pushed an extremist view of Roe vs Wade, and through individual legislation at the state level, has chipped away at all the subtlety of the original approach. They have forced it into an all or nothing discussion, where practically no woman can safely get an abortion, even if she has been raped or there has been incest. She must travel impossible distances because clinics where she might receive reproductive health care have been forced to close. I don’t believe this is ever an easy decision for any woman, no matter how clear cut it might seem - despite the loud voices that try and frame this debate. I must add, voting Republican will only make things worse, undercutting our right to be in charge of our own health care. The vast majority of women on both sides still want and need Roe vs Wade to be there!
146
Women don't have to die in back-alley abortions, Ms. Wen. Bring the baby full term for adoption by a family who will love it. We who read this fine piece, and Ms. Wen herself, were full-termers.
Which is worse: aborting a human child or carrying a pregnancy for 9 months? We don't need King Solomon to answer that one. Those who seek abortion have their own sword in a scapel, while those who would take the child in a "heartbeat" must stand and weep.
What tangled webs we've weaved for women and their unborn.
3
@Lake. woebegoner - "Which is worse: (having an abortion) or carrying a pregnancy for 9 months?" When it's my body, it's my decision, and it's none of your business.
I suspect that you're male, since you so blithely discount the impacts of "carrying a pregnancy for 9 months". There are huge physical and emotional impacts from pregnancy and birth - impacts that only that particular woman in that particular life situation has any right to weigh. Forced Birth people seem to think that women have recreational abortions.
Nobody knows what Life is, let alone when it begins. The phrase "aborting a human child" is silly. Late term abortion is almost non-existent and only done in the most extreme situations.
"…adoption by a family who will love it…" is another myth that works best when the child is white, attractive and healthy. That's not always the case, however, as shown by the fact that there are more than 120,000 kids who are now in foster care (and the foster care system is another bag of worms) awaiting your "…adoption by a family who will love it…".
Maybe instead of "standing and weeping", you should put your money where your mouth is and adopt one - you know, in a "heartbeat"?
9
@Lake. woebegoner
You feel free to bring any baby you become pregnant with to full term and then give it away to strangers.
You glibly order us to produce babies as if pregnancy and birth and becoming a mother has no impact on our lives-- no more interruption than going to UPS and dropping off a package.
I am not a brood mare who exists to breed babies for sad infertile couples.
1
It's so unfortunate that PP suffers this schism now, when abortion access is under fire like never before. There is something be learned from Wen's essential point that the way to advance access to reproductive health services is to contextualize abortion within the full spectrum of care. I think this makes PP's mission more accessible and meaningful to a broader range of families, especially in communities of color where, at least in my state, people negotiate the realities of their life with their commitment to their faith. But we are also at a point where PP can't let their foot off the gas of defending abortion access at every turn. I'm not smart enough to figure out how you reconcile those two imperatives.
3
Finally, someone who is interested in working to bring people together towards a common goal that everyone can agree on. Unfortunately, common sense has left the building. Thank you for trying - it’s more than most people try to do. You had a Herculean task and it’s not a shock that you had to step down. However, you did something extremely important. You planted a seed for change about what Planned Parenthood really is what their mission should be. You see the big picture and that is called leadership. I will continue to support Planned Parenthood as it is still the only organization willing to stand up for women and their choices. But what a loss!
334
@Paula Wasserman
You're absolutely correct, Paula. Common sense has left the building.
In another NYT pick, the writer opines: "This is another battle for the soul of America. The enemy is using tactics that are not friendly ..."
Why the warpaint? Why the militarism?
One likely reason is that there are decades, if not centuries, of women's built up resentment at work here. Peace talks are not likely to happen nor compromises reached unless and until the reasonable ire of women is addressed, understood and somehow ameliorated.
That sort of mediation / arbitration is what needs to happen but when we're talking "battle" and "enemy" and "tactics," well, human decency as well as common sense no longer occupy the same address.
The pro-political voices in PP are strong but their anger and implacability have left them in an odd position -- at least optics and language-wise. Their strident stance on all issues involving reproduction have created an unbecoming ideology: "Pro-abortion." How anti-life and self-destructive.
Bill Clinton captured the issue best when he hoped for a future in which abortions were safe, legal and rare, and Leana Wen seems to be very much on the same page.
Unfortunately, abortion rights -- an odd term -- has shoved reproductive rights and the overall health of women and their families into the back seat.
A majority of white women voted for Trump. They were not in favor of Hillary's brand of feminism.
Caveat emptor.
6
@Gluscabi
Shame on the people who cannot grow up enough to see the bigger picture. Dr. Wen is a good physician who was looking to expand the conversation. She was not declaring NO abortion. PP has lost a lot of good will and esteem with this move. Sad to say, they have become rigid in their thinking.
2
Nope, utterly the wrong message to take from this situation.
Dr. Wen,
Your article is great. It's well thought out and nicely presented. It's just a little too dreamy. Here are two essential facts that you seem to miss:
1. The name of the organization you led is PLANNED PARENTHOOD. That suggests that the money I donate to it will be used to help women control their reproduction. Other womens health issues are nice if that goal were fully reached. But I didn't think PP should be a walk in clinic for people with the flu or a broken toe.
2. Women's reproductive freedom is under severe attack! There is no nicey nice way to deal with that other than through education, legislation and one court battle after another. This is another battle for the soul of America. The enemy is using tactics that are not friendly and they are not going to be turned by the techniques you speak of.
I suggest that the leader of Planned Parenthood should refocus on the core issue of defending the rights of women and providing the service that they originally were charged with. Birth Control. And get ready for the political consequences. It IS political. And it is a moral imperative to fight the movement that thinks pro-life ends at birth.
556
@Bob Bruce Anderson. From the PP website:
The mission of Planned Parenthood is:
to provide comprehensive reproductive and complementary health care services in settings which preserve and protect the essential privacy and rights of each individual;
30
Calling those who oppose abortion “the enemy” is symptomatic of what is wrong with the progressive movement in this country. Having political views different than one’s own does not make a person a bad person or an enemy.
22
@Newport Iggy - their war shows that they really are the enemy of healthcare for poor women. It's their actions, not their political views, that are the problem.
44
Wen is correct and those within PP who opposed her will regret her loss. As an older physician who went through medical training at a time when abortion was illegal and I watched over the deaths of many young women who died from botched attempted abortions, I know how important Roe is. As a long time observer of the political realities, I know that a different approach by PP made excellent sense. I have been a dedicated financial supporter of PP. My enthusiasm for continuing in that role has been severely diminished. I suspect I am not alone in those feelings.
394
@Billdoc2
Since I suspect women still need abortions, I suspect many of us will continue to donate regardless.
48
@Billdoc2
Remember, Planned Parenthood is to left what NRA is to right.
Political stepping stone. Unfortunate it has got to that point.
4
@Billdoc2 Dr. Wen's description of building coalitions with diverse views for practical ends is called "realpolitik." Perhaps she was asked to leave because she doesn't have a sophisticated understanding of politics or history.
12
That Dr. Wen wrote this article primarily as an apologia to vindicate her dismissal rather than to discuss PP or abortion or health care or politics is evident in her first sentence, where she says "I left." She left because she had no choice but to leave. Her mistake, I think, was and remains her failure to recognize that EVERYTHING is political--abortion, our response to drug abuse, health care in general (most certainly women's health care, especially reproductive health care). This reality is evident in the irony of the name of the organization, which was certainly chosen for political impact; "Parenthood" implies the contribution of a male, yet no services are designed for men. The next logical step in providing more comprehensive health care services to women would be to direct them to men too. Then PP becomes just another clinic. We forget that reproduction of the species comes at great risk to women, even as we read the statistics about maternal mortality in the United States or violence directed towards women because of raging male hormones. I remain an anti-abortion, pro-choice supporter of Planned Parenthood and will ramp up my financial contribution to this vital organization.
5
Atheists have played nice by not joining atheist organizations for the most part. Look where they are now--no voice anywhere in the federal government.
I agree with Dr. Wen and am sorry she is gone.
Why are we in 2019 fighting over how young women handle a crisis pregnancy? How does abortion remain a leading contentious national issue? Abortion is at an all-time low, but why don’t the anti abortion zealots see this as encouraging? They never mention it because they need to amp up the threat.
The moral majority demagogues were on target in seeing the endless political potential of abortion. It’s so easy to love the “unborn” and see one’s self as a protector of “life.” You get to be morally superior without doing anything except judging others, in a situation most will never face. It has little to do with reality.
How do we de-politicize abortion when the anti abortion zealots politicize it to the extreme?
4
Not too long after the Roe v. Wade decision I went to PP to get my first gynecological exam and birth control. In part, thanks to them, I never needed an abortion.
Back then abortion was just a facet of women's health care. Not any longer. That should be obvious to anyone at the helm of any health service provider.
While Dr. Wen seems to be a smart, thoughtful person, I am glad that PP realized she was not right for this job.
99
@jar Strange, i thought you would conclude by supporting Dr. Wen. So i guess i really don't understand your point at all.
12
I have to disagree with Dr. Wen in regard to abortion being a political issue. The right to determine what happens to one's own body is perhaps the singular, most fundamental civil right. Those who attack the right to choice are, for the most part, also attacking other civil rights. Although abortion is clearly a health care matter, and one of the few means to preventing illegal abortion, it cannot be divorced from a political context. A relevant read is Warren Hern's, "Abortion as Insurrection".
https://www.drhern.com/abinsurrect.htm
4
Planned Parenthood DOES treat men.
2
@Claire Appelmans Great article by Warren Hern.
I support a mission for Planned Parenthood to provide the full spectrum of care for women and children.
3
Sadly, the Left as many wild-eyed ideologues as the Right. Thanks for your efforts Dr. Wen!
1
@Yo - If demanding the exclusive right to make my own decisions about my own body makes me an "ideologue", Yo, so be it.
2
I'm sorry. We politicize everything because it simplifies our lives, Russia likes to divide to conquer, and the media loves nothing more than the simple compelling narrative of good guys and bad guys. And most of all good girls and bad girls.
2
Wow, someone who actually speaks the truth. It is amazing how many people this offends - which means she should keep on speaking it.
3
So abortion is not Health care, that was too much of a stretch for even ardent abortion supporters
1
Planned Parenthood was the ONLY health care facility that would see and treat me when I was broke and uninsured. They have a sliding pay scale.
I've never had an abortion BECAUSE of the existence, and care I recieved at PP.
I had pap smears, breast exams, training on how to properly examine my own breasts and what a potential cancer would feel like, which lead to a lumpectomy, pre-emptively stopping a much larger and expensive problem in the future.
PLANNED PARENTHOOD PROVIDES HEALTH CARE
9
Yes it was originally about health care for women but the right made it political and now politics is the only way to fight for this right for a woman to choose.
5
Of course Dr. Wen took an all encompassing vision of PP’s mission. She is a trained Emergency physician. She had to learn, as part of her training and work experience to look at the big picture and to deal with many hostile and illogical people. It is PP’s loss that they could not also see the bigger picture.
144
@Charlie
I am a physician and I agree with your comment.
7
@Charlie. There is no “bigger picture” when one side is trying to deny you the right to control your own body, unless it’s a picture of someone denied access to relieve themselves because others don’t like the idea of defecation and urination. Pregnancy is a biological process not a pathway to God — nor a message from him!
25
@B. Rothman
The ‘bigger picture ‘ is making others realize that there is more than one issue you are focusing upon. You try to get them to buy into your overall agenda so they don’t keep looking at the one thing ( no matter how it important it is) they don’t like. It is not a way to deal with the religious zealots but it may work on others who oppose abortion ‘just because’.
11
An older physician like Billdoc2, I am torn between wanting to defend Dr. Wen's stance and to criticize her unwillingness to acknowledge something that's fairly obvious as well as necessary to the very purpose of Planned Parenthood. Unfortunately, the medical education and training we doctors receive in the United States all too often isolates us from the political realities we will eventually face. Though when I was in school, the Medicare legislation had already been accomplished, instead of learning about its relationship to the clinical practices we would enter, it was relegated to being considered in terms of a couple of basic facts that would allow us to answer multiple choice question son our national board exams. Not until much later did many of us realize that health care and health care financing were implicitly political issues. Our sluggish--and to us ultimately brutal-- awakening explains why the organization and delivery of health care in the United States were in those intervening years literally taken out of our hands.
Politics lurks behind every endeavor in which there are important issues to be addressed. Dr. Wen knows that physicians should focus on the health of their patients, perhaps especially women, children, and the under-served. That means that there's a dual calling: our profession and the community we serve. The latter demands that we engage in any political struggles that affects health care. We must get our hands messy that way too.
149
@PMJ Great insight. Thank you.
12
You made the modern mistake of following your oath, putting people first, and eschewing political rhetoric. Kudos to you and shame on PP.
94
@LTJ
It is naive to think that there are people on both sides of the abortion debate who wish to find common ground.
1
@LTJ No, LTJ. She made the mistake of focusing on making abortion safer while her opponents were focusing on making it illegal.
It does not matter how well you run a ship if you let it get shot out from under you.
3
Since this is an unlikely resolvable political issue, why not attack it from another direction and make it become a moot point? Diminish the need for abortions by passing bills that mandate sex education in schools, make pregnancy protection practically free, whatever, and in an unlikely event pregnancy does occur, provide adoption services and the likes. Promote legislation which will add to the conversation rather than just arguing a dead end right or wrong issue.
10
@Our Road to Hatred
There appears to be a lack of communication within Planned Parenthood. I find it hard to belief that the organization could not resolve the differences Dr. Wen describes. Perhaps it was her administrative personality?
1
@Our Road to Hatred - All great ideas, ones that Progressives have been touting for ages - but alas, Republicans oppose all of that "social engineering" stuff.
1
Every month my heart sinks when my lovely wife tells me, “my period just came.” My heart cries out knowing that at this point my wife wont become pregnant and give birth.
In my early thirties after having one baby, my first wife miscarried at five plus months, it was a horrible and traumatic time.
In time we had two more babies though, but that scar is still there.
In my mid-twenties, still in university, I was dating a woman for six months when she became pregnant. I loved her, but could not ever marry her as our personalities often led to conflict. She wanted the baby, but when she learned I would not marry her, it created so much turmoil in her heart. It was her decision to seek an abortion, but I supported it. I was there with her at Planned Parenthood in Houston. While not there for the operation, I was called in to see the blood and find her crying uncontrollably. I will never forgot that moment, that time. We both have scars from that day, I live with some guilt from that day. At the same time I did then, and still believe to this day it was the right decision.
I understand and respect people whom believe we murdered a child that day. I disagree, strongly, but can’t tell you you you don’t have the right to believe what you do.
Dr. Wen, you are so right that abortion is just one small pat of what PP does. What Dr. Wen and so many thousands of health care professionals know is that almost no women come to having an abortion easily. It is a wrenching decision
15
To me, Planned Parenthood and the right to choose are both examples of single issue politics. Anyone who doesn’t support either of those concepts—I will oppose in any way possible.
I am glad to read Dr. Wen’s explanation of why she left PP, but it leaves me with several questions or disconnects. First of all, Planned Parenthood is about planned parenthood. When that basic mission is under the full frontal attack we’re seeing right now, defending the right of choice must be the focus. Secondly, while I understand the concept of reaching and creating alliances with those who don’t share PP’s values, I question whether that can be effective given the single-minded assault we are facing.
I fear that Dr. Wen’s intellectual and humanitarian approach is a perfect example of bringing a knife to a gunfight. It’s like deciding to change Trump’s mind with logic—or appealing to the GOP members of Congress to act in the national interest. Those strategies, at this time and place, are unfortunately a fool’s errand.
18
" I have long believed that the most effective way to advance reproductive health is to be clear that it is not a political issue but a health care one."
Of course it's both. How on earth could the word "both" not enter Dr. Wen's thinking here? To present a false alternative as if it were real--to me, that speaks of deep confusion.
Dr. Wen's very next sentence, in fact, points to the politics of the abortion issue: "I believed we could expand support for Planned Parenthood — and ultimately for abortion access — by finding common ground with the large majority of Americans who can unite behind the goal of improving the health and well-being of women and children."
So this is politics. But it's a politics of conciliation, not of conflict.
But the die has been cast. Conflict has already decided us. State laws, Supreme Court appointments and all the machinations that went into them, and so on, all indicate that abortion rights opponents see this as a conflict. They will not be conciliated.
So Dr. Wen's political approach was deemed out of step with times of crisis, and I can't say I don't agree.
8
Dr. Wen’s comments strike me as narcissistic. If she supports the organization as she says, she’d understand that this is not helpful discourse. Further, what doesn’t sit well is that she talks about long-term PP initiatives as if she came up with them herself in the last 8 months. Clearly, this was not a good fit, and that happens, but it’s past time to move on. Lastly, I doubt keeping this in the news in this fashion is going to help her with prospective new employers.
11
Ms. Wen, your goals are admirable but you can't do it without playing politics. The other side, the anti-abortionists, will hammer you in the legislatures and have abortion completely overturned as it effectively has been in many states even though it is still legal.
If it gets to the supreme court, you will find out just how political it is.
11
I can understand where she's coming from when she talks about how PP has become overly politicized and distracted from providing and supporting reproductive health rights. In Oregon, PP created a litmus test for politicians in which they had to support several other issues, including rent control, to win its endorsement. They'd been turned into a vehicle for all kinds of unrelated left-wing causes, playing on the organizations' popularity with the Democratic base, but at the same time, undermining their standing among people who, say, don't support rent control.
6
@Chris Gray Well, I mean, women don't need to live in a house. They can live on the street, I guess.
At another time, this might have been a sensible approach. Right now, it amounts to unilateral disarmament in the face of a mobilized army. You can fly a flag of truce, but Trump and his odd bedfellows on the religious right have no respect for such niceties. They are out for blood.
35
You will never convince the anti-choice faction that abortion is neutral “health care.”
Abortion IS political, you can’t change that. Those of us who support continued access to abortion can’t afford to be wishy-washy about it. Especially not now.
22
Kate,
I am am an unapologetically and staunchly pro life woman. I do not appreciate name calling by those who oppose my views. I do not go around calling pro choice (which really means they are pro abortion) supporters forced death people or participating in the culture of death. I expect the same curiosity.
I know it is difficult for pro choice folks to believe there are still those who are pro life but we do exist in large numbers. We only continue to grow our support in the pro life movement. I know because I am one of many.
2
The word should be curtesy. (I expect the same curtesy.)
"I wanted to tell the story of all of its services — and in so doing, to normalize abortion care as the health care it is"
I've never believed this, but I'm glad when people state their position without using euphemisms or hide behind hazy descriptions.
2
This woman is politically tone deaf. She talks about joining hands with anti abortion groups to safeguard our "rights." But she hasn't a clue about the fact that it is those very "rights" that are contested. The other side is not willing to compromise nor join hands on the very rights involved here. They insist there is no "right" in the mother sufficient to overcome the "right" of eight or so human cells to dominate the conclusion. They essentially deny the right of women to determine the fate of their own bodies. There is no room to join hands, no willingness to compromise, a firm insistence that abortion is murder, That position deserves the scorn that the author totally rejects. Good riddance and good luck.
13
I’m astonished that at this pivotal moment , when women’s rights are under heavy attack, the Times would pick a side in a dispute whose complex details are necessarily masked from the public, and give one side free rein to shape the narrative. For those taking Wen at her word about exactly why she was fired, please think again. No organization makes such a decision lightly, and certainly not one facing public scrutiny for its every move. If you support abortion rights, support Planned Parenthood.
8
@Maia Ettinger
I don't understand what aspect of Wen's account of why she was fired you contest. Also, Wen clearly states that she still cares deeply about Planned Parenthood. You and she (and all of us...) are in the same boat.
I'm so surprised by how all the responses here are so critical of Wen. I found the part of the essay explaining how the conflict transcends the fight for abortion rights, to our national ethos, spot on. Count me among those in the middle who hate the current histrionics from both the left and right.
1
A chief executive is never fired for one reason, and in this instance, there’s reports of her imperious management style and tone-deaf leadership within the organization that is most certainly the tip of a larger iceberg, since employers have to be very careful about what they disclose about terminations for fear of getting sued. Someone who just got fired is never going to give you an objective account of what happened.
2
If you had a venn diagram of abortion, one circle being the politics of women having control over their own bodies and the other circle of reproductive choice being healthcare, the two circles would almost entirely overlap.
Although, if men were the ones to get pregnant, it'd be seen as wholly a health issue and they'd have quick and easy access to abortion because men wouldn't stand ffor their bodies being legislated. Women shouldn't either.
13
As somewhat a libertarian in wanting government to stay out of everything but the strict minimum, I tend to believe that abortion should be the decision of the pregnant woman alone.
But then I struggle with the question of who gets to decide the cut-off date of an abortion. Is it when the first heart beat is detected or after 4,5,6,7,8 or 9 months ? Most would agree that an abortion at 8 months (other than for life endangering conditions of the pregnant woman) is a no-no, but is 3 months ok ? Once you ask that question, you need to set a time-line, and then you need government to get involved, and when you get government you risk politics. That is why I have understanding for both Pro-Choice and Pro-Life, and why I struggle to make up my mind on where I stand.
3
@Harry: No women wakes up in her 8th month of pregnancy and decides to get an abortion on a whim. Late term abortions happen when the pregnancy is non-viable or the woman's life is threatened. Most women who want abortions *want* to get them as early as possible. But anti-choice people put all kinds of barriers in her way to get one as soon as possible (wait periods, closing clinics so she has to travel long distances, etc.)
25
A loss for sure. PP is a great, necessary organization. These are tough times for many issues. For example, Immigration is nuanced as well. It's not just about racism and xenophobia. We all need to keep engaging people who we don't agree with but realize we need to keep talking, explaining and trying to move forward.
3
I believe that it is wrong for government to tell anyone what to do with their body. But this is a very complex issue because at some point the fetus does in fact become a child. Our daughter was born seven weeks early and I can assure you she was in fact a child.
However, the ouster of Dr. Wen really puts the lie to the trope that Planned Parenthood is really a women's health organization. It is a political organization first and foremost and as such should receive no government funding as cash in fungible and money given to them really can be used in any way they please, assuming they have competent accountants. There are so many ultra liberal supports who are also ultra wealthy that they should take on the prudent of paying the support of the organization. But, of course, they would rather the money paid by taxpayers.
5
@Thomas Smith -- if you believe it is wrong for a "government to tell anyone what to do with their body," then what possible difference can the point at where a fetus becomes a baby make? As far as Planned Parenthood is a political organization, I wonder how it could possibly be apolitical with the direct attacks on its very existence made so frequently by "conservative" legislators.
9
@Thomas Smith You clearly have no idea of the correlation between access to health services in underserved populations and a healthy economy. If you truly understood the relationship, supporting the services would be a priority for you and all those focused on money as the end game.
5
@Stephen Beard. Simply that once viable outside the woman’s body, it is a human child and as such should have human rights. So, should the government allow one human to unilaterally terminate, I.e. kill, another human? At that point you have conflicting rights and that is why it is complex. I don’t support capital punishment either and for essentially the same reason.
2
Moderation, like disarmament, is a wonderful idea, but it works only if both sides are willing to play. And there are times when two positions simply cannot coexist and there is no middle ground.
12
I don't think that Dr. Wen understand reality. If PP would be another health clinic for women, it will be easy to shut down, because there are others that do the same thing. It is much more difficult to shut down the clinic that provides unique specializing care. No mentioning abortion will not decrease the opposition, but rather move the issue out of public view, and increase probability of quiet banning the procedure.
5
@yulia
If what you say is true, why does PP try to minimize the extent to which it relies on abortion for its existence? And since no government money can go towards paying for abortion services, why does PP worry so much about losing government funding?
If PP focused on providing abortions, it would be totally independent of government funding, and therefore, of government control.
@J. Waddell Why did you decide PP relies on abortions? Abortions are the part of family planning, and PP wants women to have as many choices as possible to choose which one fits to the particular woman. Why PP worries to lose the Government funding? The ANY service cost money, if they lose the funding, how could PP provide the services beside abortions? PP focuses on family planning that is important for society and therefore, the Government should fund it as any other service to society.
Ah, Yulia!
Why not admit Wen was standing in the way of Transgender rights trumping Women’s rights?
Language and messaging are everything to a generation told to “brand” themselves for success.
The National Health Service in England got right on board with “pregnant people” instead of “mothers”.
But Wen was a tougher customer, in advocating for Women’s health.
Transgendered folk deserve healthcare designed specifically for them.
They have different needs than Women.
1
Dr. Wen asked, "Will the conversation continue to be dominated by a vocal minority from both ends of the spectrum, or can there be space for those of us in the middle to come together around shared values?"
Well, the answer from the last 50 years or so, has been a clear, resounding NO. And the answer to her was a quick trip out of town on a rail.
Dr. Wen, thank you for at least trying.
12
I am a vigorous defender of a woman's right to choose and a frequent contributor to Planned Parenthood. But I care about results, and would like to hear from the leadership that remains how they respond to Dr. Wen's specific points. If Wen's approach were to lead to better healthcare access for women, including for abortion, I am inclined to support her.
So does the board disagree with that premise, or do they have other objectives that are more important? As a contributor to Planned Parenthood, I'd like to know the answer before my next contribution.
9
@Norwester - Wen was fired, she didn't just "leave." She refused to listen to political experts, and insisted on doing things like adding "asthma, the common cold" and other things to the website as things PP treats. They don't. She wanted to either pretend that PP treats lots of conditions they're not equipped to treat, or things that some PP locations treat while others don't. PPs enemies are legion, and claiming to treat things that PP doesn't currently treat is simply handing ammunition to its myriad enemies.
If Wen wanted to expand the mission of PP, fine, that's something she could work toward over time, making sure first there's the money to add extra services like that, and that they would still have the personnel to provide all their traditional services if they so greatly expand other medical care.
17
@MegWright
I'd like an answer to my question. I currently give $900 a year to Planned Parenthood because I care about all women getting access to medical care, including abortion. Planned Parenthood is in the crosshairs of every rabid, religious extremist, budget-cutting Republican because their mission of delivering healthcare is eclipsed by their political persona. The combination of the two missions under one banner has always been questionable. I'd like to see the rationale for why Wen's approach will not have a better long-term outcome.
6
@Norwester To try to answer. PP provides specific services related to women, focusing, but not exclusively, on reproductive services. Other clinics, organizations, doctors, etc. provide other heath care services which round out the total package for women.
No organization that I know of is opposed to treating women for cancer, the common cold, etc. However, powerful political and religious forces are constantly trying to stop women from obtaining reproductive services. PP is under attack by political forces. It is necessary to maintain a strong political presence or the organization will be dismembered and all the health care services it offers will disappear.
That is why failing to place the political needs first is more important than expanding health care into areas already covered by other practitioners.
11
Pro-choice and pro-life are not mutually exclusive. Pro-choice is not synonymous with pro-abortion. Anti-abortion is not synonymous with pro-life or with women’s health, but it does minimally entail anti-choice and stigmatization. Without choice, the overall health care dimension of the abortion debate becomes fundamentally distorted on both sides of the issue. Agency is diminished and degraded.
A precondition of the health care aspect in the context of abortion rights is the political and therefore legal framework within which these rights can be exercised. Anti-choice absolutists will probably not be persuaded by the health care considerations associated with abortion rights because their objections are not primarily rooted in law, health care outcomes for women and families, or even politics, except as a means to an end. Their sense of “morality” trumps everything and everyone else, and they are more than happy to impose their bigotry on everyone.
7
Abortion IS political. The only way that Planned Parenthood can be non-political is to stop performing or even talking about abortion. Is that where the good doctor wants to go?
further, birth control is also becoming political. Despite the legal carve outs, the RCC has been actively working to get it out of health care coverage. Since that is also political, should PP drop that as well?
The whole abortion thing is a great exercise in branding. It became "pro-life" to oppose abortion. It became a measure of responsibility with respect to birth control. As in, you don't need it if you are not slutting around. Of course, the RCC opposes it anyway, married or not.
Abortion and contraception will never be apolitical. Best to deal with that reality.
18
@uwteacher
I completely agree with this writer. Inevitably, abortion is political.
@uwteacher. It also became "pro women's health" to advocate for abortion. The branding goes both ways.
2
Thank you, Dr. Wen, for your continued advocacy. Your colleagues are right that abortion is a de facto political issue, but it needn't necessarily be that way. I share your belief that abortion is a health care issue and should be approached as such.
Framing abortion as a "political" or "cultural" issue gives the false impression that it's not absolutely essential; it gives the false impression that it's just a "difference of opinion"; it gives the false impression that "both sides" have equally justifiable positions; and it provides fodder for some to politicize it even further.
Granted, nuance is difficult. But because abortion is under incessant attack, it is imperative that we welcome everyone who supports reproductive health care into the coalition. Nonetheless, I hope that I'm wrong.
8
The following quote from Dr. Wen's piece is the "tell," to use poker terminology, that explains why she was dismissed.
"Another area of contention was my attempt to depoliticize Planned Parenthood. The organization and the causes it stands for have long been in the cross-hairs of political attacks."
The above signals a retreat from combatting, and a degree of concession to those who oppose women's health care rights, of which the right to abortion is the keystone, a position apparently not shared by Dr. Wen.
In the face of a resurgent extreme right, retreating is not a wise response to a misogynist right who will not be satisfied until a broad anti-women agenda is achieved.
Whatever the merits of broadening Planned Parenthood's mission may be, it need not be done at the expense of determined defense of women's fundamental rights, a defense that will at times require political action.
15
@Peter Filardo
It goes to what Planned Parenthood's mission is. If it is, in fact, to ensure access to healthcare, including abortion, for all women, I support it. If it is a broader agenda, I'd like to know what that is before I resume my support. I'm not interested in supporting an organization whose primary purpose is to get headlines. I currently give $900 a year to Planned Parenthood. I have a right to know.
4
@Peter Filardo If you de-politicize PP, it won't make the other side de-politicize and they will hammer you to death. They will win every battle in the courts and the legislatures. Being the good angel doesn't win anything
I don't know the details on any of this but maybe there needs to be a PP that is strictly medical and an umbrella or sister org that is political and supports PP's right/ability to provide/protect the services they have done. It seems there is no way to completely isolate the medical world from politics. It sounds hard to have a person at the helm who is both a doctor--with a doctor's sensibility--as well as a politician with the constant negotiating, defining, and, yes, fighting.
5
@ Kim... That's why this didn't work out. PP is first and foremost a political organization; the actual delivery of health care to patients is secondary. Ms. Wen's sin here was to try and make health care the primary focus. She learned her lesson real quick.
6
@Kim - That already exists. PP has had a political action arm for years or decades. It's funded separately from PP (from donations) and operates separately. If you donate to PP, you can designate your donation for the PAC or for the healthcare arm of the organization.
5
Support for Roe vs Wade with Brett Kavanaugh appointed to the Supreme Court and Wen doesn’t think abortion should be a big issue of concern?
I’m a nurse. She’s a doctor. She does need to take her philosophy somewhere else. There are plenty of clinics who can help women’s health generally. Planned Parenthood is the only hope for women who need more.....They need a leader who can help them, not turn times back.
15
@MIMA
You need to reread the article. Her message is not about the objective, but the method.
"I believed we could expand support for Planned Parenthood — and ultimately for abortion access — by finding common ground with the large majority of Americans who can unite behind the goal of improving the health and well-being of women and children."
5
@MIMA. I have no problem with PP being an organization for women who "need more". I have a problem with my tax dollars supporting that activity, directly or indirectly.
2
Abortion has become a proxy for so much more than a medical procedure. For the all or nothing zealots on both sides of the debate abortion has come to stand for all they despise about each other. For those of us who see abortion as part of overall reproductive rights and health care the underlying divisiveness is a distraction from something more important. What is more important? That effective contraception & sexual education is available to all, that all pregnancies are handled with compassion and personal choice (including abortion when appropriate) and that children come into a society prepared to nurture both the intended and unintended children. I know that’s rather idealistic of me but as someone born of an unintended pregnancy in the 1950’s and put out for adoption I have my own unique point of view. I am not anti abortion and distrust institutional anti abortionists underlying intent. I believe that organizations like Right to Life have an agenda that goes beyond abortion and includes other reproductive rights issues like access to contraception and sexual education. My concern is that in the age of provocation the reproductive rights response is excessive and has triggered a feedback loop of ever extreme reactions by both sides. Planned Parenthood’s change of direction from abortion as part of reproductive health care to outright political advocacy is misguided and plays into their critics agenda. I regret this, it won’t help.
4
I would welcome Dr. Wen’s passion, expertise, and effective leadership back to Baltimore, where she could once again advance public health services and thought in a city struggling for justice in so many areas.
11
I really liked what she was doing - very sad to see her go. I don't think she was guilty of "mission creep". IMO the mission of PP has always been encapsulated in its name: Planned Parenthood. Yes, that means abortion - but also means a host of other services. But in much of the nation, PP has become almost entirely associated with abortion. She was trying to re-frame public perception, in a way that would have had great benefits.
She really seemed to understand how complex the abortion issue is to many Americans. She went beyond "you're either for us or against us". She understood.
I, for instance, am both pro-life and pro-choice. Many Americans are. I abhor the thought of abortion. I also abhor the thought that the government would have any standing to be involved in what is one of the most personal, intimate decisions a woman (hopefully with her SO) might have to make.
I think it was Sandra Day O'Conner - the conservative - that had worries about abortion restrictions precisely because she was a conservative: she thought that the principle that the government could restrict abortions was identical to the principle used by the Chinese government to require abortions.
Ms. Wen understood these vast nuances. She reached across the aisle. I believe she had a vision in which ultimately even a pro-life woman would feel comfortable going to a PP clinic for pre-natal care - which would result in support of the total mission.
She was a calm shining light, and I'll miss her.
18
At the root of all this is that PP suffers from a branding problem. They do much much more than provide contraception services as the name implies. They should be called Women’s Health Services. And with that, I completely agree w Dr Len. She was not hired to be a lobbyist or the CEO of a political organization; she was hired to run a chain of women’s health clinics. They should have let her do her job.
12
@Gail - There was an article in the NYT a few days ago that spelled out some of the things Wen wanted to do. She wanted to broaden PP to a comprehensive health clinic, treating not just reproductive health issues but wanting to advertise that they treat asthma and other things they're not equipped to treat. Expanding PP clinics to comprehensive general health clinics would overwhelm the system and prevent PP from being able to offer to as many women the reproductive healthcare they specialize in. There are plenty of other places to get comprehensive health care, and only a very few PPs to provide reproductive health care.
2
She was hired to be the President of Planned Parenthood Federation and Planned Parenthood Action Fund, which means she was hired to do both.
1
Why is it wrong to expand Women’s health care? Instead an emphasis on transgendered folk has been chosen.
They have very different needs than Women, as a group.
1
It is true there are some Americans who would tolerate abortion if we could only just keep quiet about it, yet agree with prohibitions the minute the awful procedure is brought to mind.
Nevertheless, cooperating with “moderates” to criminalize abortion somewhat more will not depoliticize abortion, let alone appease the people who can, in our political system, abolish it. The criminalizes are theocrats who will never stop at compromise and never ease their pressure on “moderates” who feel tormented by political conflict.
Did PP extend the use of birth control by shutting up and just practicing medicine, or by advocating for decriminalization?
Decriminalization does not erase ethical responsibility, it keeps judgements about abortion out of our courtrooms.
PP doesn’t need to put its head in the sand to practice medicine. By all means, perform Pap smears. However, innocuous procedures are a fool’s camouflage. The only defense against the threat of criminalization is voting — which means political action.
5
When you politicize religion you destroy its legitimacy. When you politicize healthcare you destroy its legitimacy. People will only “fight” over an issue. People have been fighting over abortion as a political issue for many decades and has it resolved itself? On the contrary it’s just become another proxy war in take no prisoners political fights, Extreme partisanship is the predictable outcome, with some states recently having made laws so restrictive they effectively outlaw it. Politicizing abortion has not normalized it over these many decades. Dr Wen’s idea might be ahead of its time but it does make sense.
8
Sad to see her go. Since this makes clear that PP is a political organization first and foremost, I hope this leads to a stripping away of tax exempt status for Planned Parenthood Federation of America, which is currently (and laughably) a 501(c)(3) organization.
5
@Ryan Does the NRA deserve its 501(c) (3) tax exempt status? Instead of gun safety education, recent events suggest NRA executives are reveling in designer suits and luxury hotel stays purchased by NRA members and that the NRA is a lobbying front for gun manufacturers.
8
Talk about politicizing views—Before you go advocating that an organization you clearly dont support and can’t imagine the need for give up their tax exemption despite providing Real Medical Services to many who wouldn’t otherwise receive mammograms, contraception, cervical cancer screening etc, how about agreeing to the same for the NRA?
6
@Ryan - PP has a separate political arm, funded separately from the PP health care arm. They're also treated differently for tax purposes.
5
Thank you. I liked the work you were doing and your ideas for the future of Planned Parenthood. I know very little about how it all works, but I do know that I contribute to Planned Parenthood once in a while and I'm bombarded by mail asking for more. How much of the budget goes to political activities? Let someone else do that work and PP should focus on the mission of delivering healthcare to women (like me when I was young) with no insurance or money to pay for doctors.
11
Consider this—If PPF doesn’t fight for its survival, your occasional donations won’t assure its survival in the current climate.
8
I have read the column and some of the comments and I only hope that Dr Wen, in her attempt to justify her side of the argument does not run off people who support PP. They will absolutely continue their mission of women's health but they cannot let down the battle on reproductive rights and a woman's right to choose - they have been the face and the banner for these issues as long as I have been a menstruating female and I have supported their political fights as well as their services. I do this for my daughter, and her daughters. I came of age in the era of open access to birth control - but just after it started, and I know the issues and pain of the era before - my mother's - when women were tied to their reproductive systems. I do not wish that on anyone. Please support PP - no one else is as effective and as dedicated in this fight as they are. And that is why Dr Wen had to go. She could not lead this fight.
13
What should be can be different from what is.
Abortion, along with all all other forms of family planning, ought to be treated as expressly medical.
Unfortunately, in this political environment, women’s bodies are a battleground and Planned Parenthood is a bogeyman. That necessitates the organization being helmed by someone savvy in politics and PR. Not ideal, but it’s existential for the opposition PP faces.
Thank you for your service to medical care in all its forms.
14
Reproductive rights, including the right to nurture, with nurturing help, if help is needed, one's own child, are basic human rights. In a perfect world, no girl or woman would become pregnant without having wanted to become pregnant. Our world has always been less than perfect. Planned Parenthood should be credited for advancing women's health care and women's rights mostly through its contraceptive clinics, whose waiting rooms in the 1970's were often standing room only with young women, many of them college students, who, at that time, could not access the pill affordably from private physicians or campus health services. Eventually, "the pill" became more affordable, available and with that, many young women sought contraception elsewhere, sometimes leaving Planned Parenthood as a clinic of last resort, and an easy target for anti-choice ideologues. Many anti-choice factions are against contraception, blame rape victims for being rape victims, and believe girls and women are second class citizens. "Blanket party" type beatings, being pushed down stairs and other means were employed probably as often if not more often than the "back alley abortions" Planned Parenthood refers to in requests for funding. For over a year, I received numerous petitions and donation requests citing the case of a ten year old Central American girl who "needed an abortion." I think of this girl often. Is she living with dignity and health care or loss, neglect and stigma?
6
I was adopted, hence not aborted so that informs my view. I am also a moderate democrat who is pro-choice - but with limits. I find third term abortion abhorrent. I also find it completely unfair to expect women to make a choice before they even know they are pregnant. Allowing abortion somewhere in the 3-5 month range seems where America is and it is where I am (albeit on the early side, which in another article the Times pointed out was a historical consensus.
Now I don't know exactly where Dr. Wen is on this but the question is "How do we form a consensus where the majority of Americans are comfortable?" Her approach to de-politicise the issue as much as possible and make it part of a broader health care issue seems more likely to lead to a consensus than making it purely an ideological issue. I am sorry to see her go.
16
@Dan L How is it YOUR business to decide whether a late term abortion is necessary? I won't trouble myself to furnish you with the many medical conditions that necessitate such a heartbreaking decision, as, if you were really interested, you could read about them yourself on the internet, starting with Wikipedia. Unlike early abortions, which can be driven by circumstantial considerations, late term abortion is ALWAYS a medical decision.
6
@Dan L
There is no such thing as "third term" abortion. Heck, there's no such thing as "third term" in a pregnancy at all.
I am really irritated when people who don't understand the basic facts about pregnancy feel like they need to share their opinions with us.
Planned Parenthood was right to let Dr. Wen go. There are lots of health care resources for women, but limiting the availability of abortion is an attack on women's rights and freedoms. No one benefits when a woman is forced to have a baby she doesn't want or cannot care for. Planned Parenthood has a crucial, frontline role. Dr. Wen belongs in a medical office, giving good, compassionate, whole body care. She doesn't belong on the frontlines of a battle for freedoms and rights.
26
Freedom and rights, for whom, Andy, from San Francisco?
Freedom and rights for Women, begin and end inside of their bodies, which require specialized for Women, whole body care.
1
I'm afraid, Dr. Wen, that you brought a pillow to a knife fight. Yes, absolutely, abortion is part of a larger medical discussion about women's reproductive health. But the right to an abortion is part of a the larger political discussion about women's rights and all Americans right to privacy. Women cannot have the larger medical discussion if the political pro-birth forces succeed in stripping them of the right to an abortion. I look forward to the day when we can have such discussions. But that day isn't now.
43
Planned Parenthood has been political since its inception. The phrase "planned parenthood" is a euphemism for "birth control." When the idea of birth control for married women was shocking, PP provided it. When the idea of birth control for single women was shocking, PP provided it. We are still struggling for abortion rights in the 21st century, and if PP is just another "mainstream health organization," we have lost our leader.
41
@Betsey Yes, PP is political. Because it is always about sex. And the control of women. By men. And by judgmental women who abet those men in their efforts to control women.
5
As a supporter of Planned Parenthood, I feel better that Dr. Wen has left after having read this essay. I am sure she has a positive role to play in the public health community- but it is not in the front lines in the fight for a woman's right to control their bodies and choose abortion .
87
From various news reports, Dr. Wen's departure was due to concerns over her management style too. She, understandably, would not address that issue.
But most importantly, I believe her de-emphasis of the political assault on abortion rights is a mistake.
Planned Parenthood has become the preeminent abortion rights organization in the world. It is uniquely equipped to use its vast resources to protect access to abortion.
Sometimes you can't choose your battles. The battle chooses you.
Wen's position would be reasonable in reasonable times. These are not reasonable times.
75
Dr. Wen, you are so right and what a great loss!
I fully support your approach and completely agree with your way of thinking!
So sorry PP has shifted to a more purely political organization and sorry that progressives are becoming as intolerant as their counterparts on the right!
I am absolutely pro choice but you have all the right ideas about what women's health requires, including the post partum aspects which are so necessary to monitor and have surely been neglected.
13
@HBD - Wen isn't telling the whole story (not surprisingly). She wanted to turn PP into a comprehensive healthcare provider, even advertising that they treat asthma. They don't, and they're not equipped to. There are other places to get comprehensive healthcare, but few places to get affordable, effective, respectful reproductive health care. Trying to expand PP's mission to comprehensive health care would overwhelm PP's resources and prevent them from providing the reproductive health care they were established to provide.
Sure, they can and often do provide prenatal care and post-partum care, but those are still part of reproductive healthcare. The same can't be said of treating asthma and other general health issues.
2
@MegWright
Meg, the fact is that Planned Parenthood has been tarred and feathered for having an association with one thing and this has been to the detriment of overall health care for women.
Progressives have to start being a lot smarter about framing issues.
1
I mean this with all due respect to Dr. Wen, but i find her position to be pretty naive. yes, abortion is absolutely health care, but I could only agree with her position if abortion rights weren’t under constant attack.
71
I fear the treatment of Dr. Wen by the top ranks of PP give voice to those who argue that Planned Parenthood is really not about health care, it's about abortion. Over the years I've seen this dynamic play out in other seemingly intractable situations, the ultimate example being those in Northern Ireland who still try to reignite the Troubles. Some never really want solutions; their power lies in constant conflict. In PP's case, the money that the conflict attracts may also be a contributor to maintaining a blatantly political emphasis. My hope is that Dr. Wen will continue to be an open advocate for women's health in all its complexities. We need her voice.
12
I listened to only 2 interviews with Dr Wen. One spent a fair amount of time pressing her on issues people are critical of PP about. I found her to be uninspiring and pretty evasive. I wouldn't say she was trying to hide the role PP plays in providing abortions, but I did feel like she did not want to defend it. I cannot help thinking that other shortcomings played a more significant part in her dismissal/departure beyond just a philosophical split over healthcare v. politics.
14
Dr. Wen presents a false dichotomy here: that abortion is political but health care overall is not. Health care in this country is extremely political, steeped in oppressive policies, meted out unfairly related to factors like race, poverty, geography, etc. I am a health care provider, which includes providing abortion. In every patient I care for I am aware of how the politics of healthcare influences how they’ve come to be in my office, needing whatever it is they need. Being aware of how political healthcare is helps me be a better, more empathetic clinician.
194
@Ecd Excellent response. Thank you.
4
Thank you for making this excellent point! Of course healthcare is political. And women’s healthcare is unavoidably politicized because women’s rights in all arenas are under constant attack.
3
@ecd: Excellent point.Healthcare is indeed political, intensely so. Anyone who doubts that hasn't been paying attention to the healthcare wars of the last two decades.
3
Dr. Wen says she “left,” PP (true, but she was ousted). In her opinion piece she said she wanted to “normalize” abortion care (somehow believing that this was possible in the current political climate). In her farewell message published in “Medium,” she said she wanted to “contextualize” abortion care (hiding it under a hazy gloss of the complete spectrum of women’s health issues?).
With all that I cannot tell if Wen truly was a shrewd force multiplier for protecting abortion rights or a naive technician who was
unwittingly ushering in the first steps to airbrushing abortion out of PP’s writ to save everything else.
Wen’s is an interesting, temporizing position that might bring short-term tactical relief. But in the long-term political battle for control over women’s bodies her leadership direction was unclear.
PP needs an unambiguous technical expert and a skilled political fighter at the helm who will not compromise on the core fight over personal sovereignty for women’s bodies.
I would like to see Wen stay in the essential fight for women’s health, but not at the top in PP. I want to learn more, but right now I believe the board took the right action on Wen. I will continue to support PP.
52
Anyone who is engaged in providing medical care needs to be lauded for their efforts and their advocacy, no matter what path that advocacy takes. Dr. Leana Wen is such a person.
However, I disagree with Dr. Wen about separating the role of Planned Parenthood when it comes to political advocacy vs. providing health care for women in a number of areas, such as health screening, breast exams, abortion, birth control, etc.
I was an escort at a Planned Parenthood clinic for about a dozen years, in addition to performing that role at another private clinic. I believe that what I was doing was both useful to the patients of the clinics and the clinic staff. What I witnessed during those years was the horrendous assaults against reproductive rights of women, both at the clinics by anti-abortionists, and across the country through laws and other forms of grotesque harassment that sometime involved murder.
The memories of the taunts, screaming, harassment, and fear from who were at the borders outside of the clinic are experiences that have been forever etched in my mind. I can't imagine what it must be like for a patient to experience those behaviors and what it is like for clinic staff. It leaves quite an impression and the actions of anti-abortionists are most often political.
Keeping women in subservient roles is one hallmark of reactionary politics. From my point of view, the political becomes intensely personal in regard to women's rights to access safe medical care.
193
@Howie Lisnoff
Thank you Howie for this. I remember well the fears of "running the gauntlet" of harassing protesters. I remember a high school friend who disappeared into the local "home" for unwed mothers for a time. I remember rich girls at my fancy college who went off to plush clinics in the Caribbean. I remember the heroic physician who performed safe procedures in my town. I thank Planned Parenthood for the excellent healthcare they provided me - PP do not underestimate your responsibilities to continue in this direction! Thank you Dr. Wen for bringing this into focus and good luck to you. To those who would vote Republican in protest - look at the bigger picture and consider the role of the ACA in providing healthcare to many who would not otherwise have it - and the attitudes of the party toward women.
14
Wow! I sincerely thank you for your service. What a brave and selfless act. @Howie Lisnoff
1
Can Planned Parenthood reasonably expect to be compensated by Medicaid and ACA government subsidized health plans for its reproductive health services while openly defining itself as a political action organization? And what does the organization have to gain by defining itself in terms of abortion rights? Maybe the answer is an increase in private donations, but how much of that money will be diverted from patient services to the political fight? Good luck with this strategy. Seems like a really slippery slope to me.
12
@Jean
There is no co-mingling of Planned Parenthood's operational revenue with its political spending.
Planned Parenthood raises and spends money for political activity and election contributions through the Planned Parenthood Action Fund, a semi-independent federal political action committee, classified by the IRS as a separated segregated fund (SSF).
This is a common legal means of allowing corporations, labor unions and charitable organizations to participate in the political sphere and influence public policy.
@Obie, Hi, but when a person donates money to PP, I assume that it is not earmarked for one place or the other. How does the money get divided up?
I liked her and thought she was a good choice. It's like "speak softly and carry a big stick." You can win more people over by appealing to reason and making clear abortion is part of health care. I am deeply troubled by the restrictive laws that are being passed but she could have had powerful lawyers working on that and voiced her opposition as an experienced physician.
17
I find this piece incredibly discouraging. I recently - and ambivalently - stopped donating to PP for reasons directly related to the trends Dr. Wen was attempting to counter. My inbox had become saturated with mailings from PP advocating seemingly unrelated progressive causes, not all of which I support. Meanwhile, I encounter more and more abortion advocates who treat the subject with an almost celebratory extremism I cannot share. I will always be pro-choice, but the significant political challenges that exist in maintaining abortion rights are not sufficient cause to deny the very real ethical questions surrounding (particularly late-term) abortion, nor to deny the diverse and often complicated emotional experiences of women who chose to abort their pregnancies, even when it is the right choice for them. I can only speak personally, but if Dr. Wen had succeeded in shifting the organization's direction as she aimed to, I would have enthusiastically resumed donating at the very least. As it stands, there remains a critical need for someone to fill that role.
52
@Hugh
I agree. Although I support access to abortion, and donate to PP, I don't necessarily support all other progressive viewpoints. Similarly, although I support gun rights, I have recently become frustrated with the NRA assuming I support all all conservative viewpoints. Both organizations would get more financial support from me if they focused on their mission.
Because of Planned Parenthood, I have never had to be in the position of weighing a decision of abortion. When I was in my early 20s, well before Obama changed healthcare to let parents cover their college age kids, I had literally nothing. It was Planned Parenthood that I could go to for affordable access to birth control, STD testing, and gynecological visits.
I am always disheartened to see this abortion battle with the sword always falling on Planned Parenthood. My story is a perfect example that it’s about woman’s health not just abortions.
103
@Anne It's not about women's health, per se; it's about control of women. It's about the US patriarchy perceiving itself as under siege and lashing out. It took over a century for women to get the vote. We are still waiting for the first woman president. And opposing campaigns attack candidates (Ferraro for VP; H. Clinton; Warren? Harris?) on the basis of sex.
4
Congratulations to Dr. Wen. She defines PP’s mission well and attempted with colleagues to carry it out generously - even to those who might be initially suspicious. It’s a health organization! Wen was/is faithful to her patients first. That’s what doctors do. Political advocacy extends from PP’s first practice. An atrophy of common sense occurs when defensive political activity leaves little light for the day to day work. Genuine advocacy can never lose sight of its primary commitments.
19
I have seen local Planned Parenthood organizations and leaders act like Democratic political pacs. Even opposing pro-choice women who happen to be Republicans in favor of a Democratic male opponent. This political behavior will naturally draw political attacks with the consequence that many women will be denied good access to healthcare services.
Dr. Wen’s efforts tried to protect the core healthcare mission of PP.
It is sad that political partisans have chosen to diminish the health care priority. The nonprofit board members may have liability for these decisions.
16
@Bill Bluefish, If they vote with Republicans to organize whatever legisature they are a part of they are not really pro-choice no matter what they say.
1
I am a defender of Planned Parenthood. I defend it on the grounds that Dr. Wen has stated. It is a healthcare organization that the right demonizes because they support the right to choose and whose abortion services constitute a relatively small percentage of the services they provide.
I do not know what PP's new approach will be, but I fear that it may make it more difficult for me to support them.\
9
Wen's view of abortion as just one of many important parts of reproductive health is correct and important, but in the current political climate PP has no choice but to advocate for abortion rights. It is not PP that has politicized this issue; women's health is under attack, and PP has been defined by those who would deny women's rights as the standard-bearer. In some areas PP is the only provider of health services other than abortion but this has not stopped politicians from attempts to defund and destroy it. Why did Wen write this article? Does she believe it will aid in making critical health services available for women? I would like to hear the view of others at PP involved in this decision.
43
I disagree with Dr. Wen that the new laws protecting abortion in some states can be attributed to her healthcare-focused approach. I actually think they’re a vindication of the more political approach. They’re a direct response to the new Supreme Court and the very political confirmation fights that got us there. That galvanized Democratic-lead legislatures.
I also agree that this is mission creep. Progressive organizations are always trying to do everything and be maximally inclusive, and it often muddles the message. Yes, PP should be aware of how it’s mission of providing family planning services fights into larger racial and socioeconomic fights, but it should be proud to stand up for one (extremely important) piece of a larger picture. If they don’t, who will?
19
I agree with Dr Wen's position in this op-ed; go wide and bring in support across the board. Having said that, her style internally, as indicated by some emails and directives released to the press, indicate a 'top down' leadership style that did much to thwart her own intentions.
Dr Wen had two populations to serve, market herself to and sell; the people of America and the people of PP. If indeed, she failed to inspire staff and management to embrace change, she lacks the most important quality of leadership, the ability to connect and influence those who worked for her and the loss of her job and her vision are as much her fault as it is PP's.
6
"Can we put aside partisan differences to do what is best for the people we serve?" Not in this environment. For the anti-choice faction, doing what is best for the health of the people physicians serve is not even ON the radar. They absolutely do not care about the health of women at all. Their vehemence is totally political - stop women from having abortions and then stop them from getting birth control - and neither Planned Parenthood nor anyone else can fight to keep women's health as the primary focus without addressing that pure political truth. It would be excellent if we could just put women's health front and center and let that guide us, but politicians won't let us.
33
What I appreciated about Wen's statement is her acknowledgment of the validity of multiple points of view, that even if you have one point of view, you acknowledge the humanity and possibility of another point of view. I miss this kind of reasonableness and moderation on both the right and the left. As I write this, I know some will be thinking "this is no time for moderation!!" That's part of the problem.
9
This is a superb article. What Dr. Wen represents is the view of so many people I know. This is such a sensible approach for Planned Parenthood and for the country.
What's missing from all the reporting about her departure is that the Board chose her because of her vision. They must have found it as compelling as I do in reading this.
Then, she tried to implement whole sale change. No doubt, there were many from within the organization who resisted. If they came for the politics, they're not going to be happy to with a new leader who wants to be more about health care. If they came became of extreme left-wing, progressive ideology, they're not going to be happy with a leader who wants to be more moderate and accommodating of the "big tent".
It's normal in an organization that's being realigned, that has new leadership, new vision, and new approach. Staff leave. They are asked to leave or they resign.
What's not normal is that the Board does not seem to have understood that this would happen. They should have stood by the leader they hired to implement this change, rather than throwing her under the bus the moment change actually happened. Note that they cite her removal because of management challenges and loss of key staff--all of which are normal and expected when change of this magnitude is expected.
As a monthly contributor to Planned Parenthood, I'm really disappointed in this failure of leadership by the Board.
15
I found Dr Wen’s premise of de-politicizing Planned Parenthood and focusing on the opportunities and special needs of womens’ health to be compelling. A woman must be able to choose what is best for her health and well being, as well as the health and well being of the child. These matters are best handled by a mother and doctor — not government.
7
I agree with Leana S. Wen - abortion is about health care. As a Catholic I can support Planned Parenthood and even a woman's right to have an abortion if she chooses to have one. When you come right down to it "morality" is a personal concept and whatever one chooses to render to God often may differ greatly from what one must render to Caesar. Caesar, from the beginning and foremost must govern society by what people do - NOT BY WHAT SOME FOLK THINK THEY SHOULD DO. The truth is - If a woman wants an abortion, she will get one, whether is be legally or not. Caesar must provide for her "choice" in-so-far as abortion clinics are preferable to coat hangers in back alleys. It is not for me to "judge" such a woman's choice. It is God's decision to judge and, as a loving father, I dare say a rightful judgment will be made..
3
@Cristino Xirau You say that morality is personal (actual, morality is social; ethics is personal), yet you turn your argument about a medical procedure into a moral one, thus compromising your own argument: in saying you are not judging, you reveal your moral judgment by deferring to "God."
Your goals are laudable, but how can abortion rights not be about politics? I agree that PP needs to emphasize its purpose as a provider of women's health care. But the Right will forever hang the abortion label around your neck. Planned Parenthood must be part of the effort to preserve a woman's right to make choices about her own body.
14
Dr. Wen, you are making the same mistake that cost President Obama so much momentum in his first term. The idea that you can depoliticize an issue that has been a critical part of the right wing strategy to break the old liberal democratic consensus in this country is not only naive, but ultimately hurts the general health interests of the women you care for.
You may not be interested in politics, but politics is interested in you.
79
An organization that provides any kind of medical care should be focused primarily on the care of the patient. That is our sacred duty as physicians, and it is a tradition far older than any government. Although you did not ultimately succeed, you did make a valiant effort, and I applaud you for speaking out as you have. Thank you.
9
I have been an avid proponent of PP over the last 40 and must say how sorry I am for Dr. Wen's sudden, abrupt dismissal. Dr. Wen was charged to help lead the organization into a new era. In this divisive time in history and with fractious fighting among all sides on this issue it was unkind for PP to treat someone in such a careless, thoughtless way. More so because the GOP have turned back the clock on women's reproductive health to a time that, after 50 years of fighting for proper women's healthcare in may life, the pain of living through this dark time once again has made the unimaginable into reality. Dr. Wen was treated badly in a very open, rather cruel manner. I am glad she was able to write her story. Everyone should have that right to tell their truth.
11
And, Ms Wen, mission creep it obviously was. What you failed to realize is 'mission creep' has destroyed many a movement (my own experience was with the anti-war movement at the end of the Vietnam War). In my opinion, at this time, with abortion rights under constant attack, every dime the organization has needs to be put into the fight. It is not the time to expand the mission and loose valuable resources to fight the good fight of abortion rights.
8
Dr. Wen's words are inspirational but, alas, the abortion debate today is not about caring for those in need, but about the exercise of power, seemingly religious power. The arsenal of the anti-abortionists is stocked with hate. Abortion is a challenging subject for debate, that is why the decision on whether or not to abort a fetus needs to be left to each individual woman, not the government where politics rules. Some woman will choose abortion and some will not, which would seem a normal outcome for complex issues, but once the law becomes involved, only one outcome can occur, we have a debate of right vs wrong. This situation is perfect for religion, the institution which claims it knows best about how we should live our lives. To combat this juggernaut, the compassion of Dr. Wen's words are inadequate, what is needed is education. Those hateful people who murder doctors and taunt people visiting abortion clinics need to be educated to the fact that the ruthless and absolute authority of the clerics is suspect, and cannot be tolerated by a free society. Alas, to gain such education, politics is needed.
5
I had a significant love that In the 1950’s took a bus from a small Florida to St. Louis. I am convinced it was for an abortion - She was a pivotal figure in my life. The new railroad for women who choose abortion will be to fly to CA and most likely wait a day or two.
1
I'm sorry, but Planned Parenthood is the subject of POLITICAl attacks.
It would be lovely the rise above politics and focus on the ideals of health care.
But it is impossible to ignore the political (ideological) attacks motivated to bring Planned Parenthood down as long as it offers any abortions.
How can Planned Parenthood offer completely ideal health services, which must include some abortions, in a state which makes that impossible?
We live in a real world, which is intensely political. I understand that Dr. Wen did not want to live her life fighting political battles.
She's entitled to that.
22
I passionately agree with Dr. Wen on every point she articulates in this fine piece — save one.
The truth I’ve learned over many years (I’m now in my fourth decade in public health) is that health *is* political. I cut my eye teeth in environmental health, where I daily sought to remedy the effects of exposures to toxic substances on poor communities. And then out of the frying pan into the fire in the days of AIDS before treatment, and then after treatment became available. Thence to US health reform and then immunization, global health care ... and on and on.
Given those years of hard-won experience, I’ve watched with dismay as PP has taken ever more politically (and morally, in my view) precarious positions on abortion on demand at any stage of pregnancy and has foolishly defined itself in many people’s eyes as being primarily focused on providing abortions, as opposed to providing women’s health services.
Roughly half of health care in America is publicly funded and all public health services are. How can anyone think this doesn’t politicize them? Taxpayers care how their money is spent — many of them very deeply — and there isn’t consensus about the highest and best use of those funds.
It’s incumbent upon all of us to seek first to understand how others feel, to find or build common ground, and recognize that in a representative democracy we get the policies that *our* (because they are ours, not mine or yours) duly elected representatives make. Or elect others.
4
I hope in the end this departure makes way for a new and effective way to make your voice heard. Please keep fighting for the women who need you.
3
What kind of move is Wen making? She says PP is an "organization under constant siege", yet as she walks out the door she bad-mouths them, and pulls the rug out from under them? Publicly criticizing them and joining the forces that are attacking PP? What kind of a leader was that? I'm guessing PP is glad to see the back of her.
18
@Alex. The kind of a leader that was thrown under the bus by her Board and is now telling her side of the story.
6
The group within PP that ousted Dr. Wen explicitly chose to take the non-profit in a political direction.
Why should PP continue to have tax exempt status if it is using its tax exemption for political purposes?
Doesn’t PP already have a separate political action affiliate? Why must the “parent” also operate as a political organization?
Why should taxpayers fund PP (actual HHS dollars not just tax exemption) if PP is a political operation? Doesn’t that violate other Federal law?
Doesn’t all of this make a mockery of the claims of Cecile Richards that PP should continue to receive taxpayer funding because of its work on women’s health?
28
The religions opposed to women's health have decided to oppose abortion by converting their churches into political organizations. Why should they be tax exempt?
Furthermore, Planned Parenthood does not and never has tried to coerce women into having an embryo or fetus removed. Those who oppose abortion explicitly present their case as a matter of religion.
Their is no moral ambiguity over abortion. Their is only religious confusion. An ovum is not a person. An embryo is not a person. A fetus is not a person.
A women is a person.
24
Sorry, but this is a misunderstanding of both tax-exemption law and the internal structure of Planned Parenthood. It’s two organizations, PP for America, the non-profit healthcare provider, and PP Action Fund, the non-tax exempt lobbying wing. One isn’t the parent organization—they are at the same level. Dr. Wen was the head of both organizations. For their charitable healthcare work, they receive tax exempt status, like many other health care organizations. They are also compensated with federal healthcare money for the healthcare services they give to patients (again, very standard). The Hyde Amendment prevents federal money being spent directly on abortion. For their lobbying work, they do not have tax exempt status. Many 501(c)3’s have a sister lobbying group—it’s really not unusual or unethical as long as the organizations are kept separate, which these surely are.
22
Elizabeth, please address the core question I asked.
Why should the health care non-profit explicitly operate as a political organizatio and still be tax exempt and receive Federal funds?
The Board said it was choosing to operate PP as a political organization by ousting Dr. Wen.
If they wanted to separate their political arm from their health care arm shouldn’t they have separate leadership?
3
The apparent reason behind Dr. Wen's departure is sad for Planned Parenthood, and sad for the US. Regardless of one's moral views on abortion, all should agree that abortions should be rare and safe. We should explain to the public that anti-abortion legislation does not reduce abortion rates, but makes abortions more dangerous for women. The data should lead us to agree that to reduce abortions we should make abortions legal and safe, while we make birth control free, increase access to education, increase job opportunities for young women, and give women
power over their own bodies. These policies also improve child health outcomes. With good leadership, these issues can eventually become bipartisan.
When abortion rights advocates frame abortion as a political issue rather than a public health and healthcare issue, they help the Republicans further manipulate the Evangelical Christian Right - a key factor in giving us Donald Trump as POTUS.
69
@Edwin Trevathan
Many Republicans only support Trump because he said he would make abortions illegal with the women and doctors vulnerable to jail sentences. So this is as political as it gets. If PP loses tax exempt status then so should all the churches. Abortions is obviously part of reproductive health for women but evangelicals make it about social moral values which is a voting issue.
23
@Edwin Trevathan
The idea that the Republicans "manipulate the Evangelical Christian Right" is novel. I think it's really the other way around.
The Evangelicals constitute a subversive political party - tax-exempt - an assemblage of grifters leading sheep. And, to mildly misquote George Carlin, they "always need money."
10
@Aghast That Republicans manipulate the Evangelical Christian Right is not novel. It was and is a clear component of the "Southern Strategy." Yes, I sadly agree that the Evangelical Right has become a subversive political party, and has also manipulated good Republicans into abandoning their principles as well. All sad, and bad for our nation. These combination of forces have led both to Donald Trump and the death of the old Republican party.
1
I believe Planned Parenthood is and should continue to be focused on what its name represents. "Parenthood" starts with sex, conception, pregnancy and raising children - women must be able to "plan" for parenthood.
That includes the right to legal abortions especially when it is medically necessary or advisable for either the mother's health or the health of the fetus.
We have a fight going on in America for the right to "planned parenthood." We have a fight going on to keep it legal and available to all women. There are people trying to take that right away from us.
Unfortunately for Dr. Wen, whether or not there were mixed signals in the hiring process - was there was an understanding that her mission was to "change the perception that Planned Parenthood was just a progressive political entity and show that it was first and foremost a mainstream health care organization" or the mission changed due to the passage of harsh anti-abortion laws across several states, we don't know.
IMO Planned Parenthood and Dr. Wen did the right thing.
7
Whatever the internal disagreements about Planned Parenthood's mission, I will continue to proudly support the organization. They will work it out. Meanwhile, I think that Dr. Wen's position is somewhat naive because clearly the abortion issue is being shamelessly exploited as a political cudgel by the Republicans, and it needs to be countered as such. That and their opposition to sex education and birth control -- see the dismal outcomes of "abstinence only" education. And that "crisis" on the Southern Border? Try considering the "gag rule" and death grip that the Catholic Church has on Central and South America, not to mention the influence of Evangelical Christians in Africa, and the terrible consequences it has had on family planning in those areas. So yes, this is a political issue, and I and many others will continue to see it that way.
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@Another teacher Thank you. I agree.
The right has worked hard to set up Planned Parenthood as a foe. Unfortunately Planned Parenthood has accepted that role. It would be beneficial for PP to follow Dr Wen’s direction and advocate for the health of mothers and babies. Perhaps it should change its name as well. Abortion does not have to be the end all be all reason for the existence of PP. The organization does a lot of good for the community by providing other services. Spread the word about those.
It should still continue to fight to keep abortion as a legal medical procedure however It cannot be the major participant in that battle. If it is Republicans vs. Planned Parenthood, it would lose. It would lose by allocating resources to the legal fight instead of using those resources to fight addiction and mental illness.
The battle for the abortion rights should be led by the people instead of a quasi political healthcare organization.
16
@VB - you say, "unfortunately, PP has accepted the role" of foe. What do you suggest we should do instead: roll over and let poor women die in back alleys?
2
@VBomg! If ever Planned Patenthood was the right name! We have a world over run with humans. Let’s just stop with the crazy talk about how great every human life is— no it’s not. We are killing the planet. We need more family planning and birth control education everywhere!!!!!
3
I have to disagree with Dr. Wen. Abortion is a stand alone issue, and one that affects the lives of all women. People are not protesting and legislating against women getting asthma and cold treatment, they are protesting a women's right to abortion. In sane and normal times abortion is not a stand alone issue, but these are not our times. Women need an established and powerful organization to stand up and take the lead in protecting their right to have one.
158
Actually, “people ARE protesting and legislating against women getting asthma and cold treatment”— attempts to eliminate the Affordable Care Act are exactly that. Wen doesn’t use the term, but her holistic, medicalized view shares a lot with a reproductive justice perspective on women’s health. That intelligent stance rightly sees ALL of women’s access to healthcare, not just to abortion, as highly political.
10
That organization would be NARAL Pro-Choice America. PP has clinics, services and education re reproduction, and all many impacts on human individuals, primarily women. NARAL focuses solely on championing reproductive freedom, including especially abortion.
1
Every story has 2 sides and I thank you for sharing yours. I also thank you for your commitment to women's health and the passion to change the focus on abortion to where it should be: a safe medical procedure and a vital part of comprehensive women's health. However, I sincerely believe that we as a nation politicize anything that supports women in choosing NOT to have children. With abortion rights under attack the way they are, Planned Parenthood is in defense mode. I understand (and agree with) Planned Parenthood's strategy. In today's unfortunate political climate, they are responding accordingly.
56
I see myself as Progressive.
I agree with Dr. Wen that we can only get there with outreach to those who do not agree with us on all issues. Some issues is enough. Even one.
I don't want Planned Parenthood to be purely Progressive. We can use its help to do outreach, and in the meantime many important things will get done, things I as a Progressive value.
There was a country in which everything was political first, and that strangled the old USSR. Nothing could be done without tiresome discussion of Lenin's writings as part of the idea. We are much better than that. We must be aware of the Siren call from inside our own bubble.
9
@Mark Thomason - good luck with your "outreach". The people who are rabidly opposed to poor women getting abortions will be happy to sit down and talk to you, I'm sure.
Dr. Wen, abortion has NEVER been about healthcare. Male control of female bodies has always been about the organized subjugation of one group by another. That subjugation and the struggle to overcome it is the very definition of politics.
126
@Walter Bruckner
Where I live, a large and active number of women oppose abortion in some circumstances. They'd be shocked to learn that they cannot think for themselves.
2
She talks about her wish to see Planned Parenthood as a healt care issue rather than a political one in the beginning and throughout most of the article.
However at the end she recognizes that it is indeed a partisan issue, not a health care issue.
9
Perhaps PP should consider a change on organization structure by bifurcating its leadership and advocacy to allow for the health and political advocacy that is required. Politics and science simply don't coexist in the age within which we live.
1
Our government has a health department, a Surgeon General and a Center for Disease Control, and family planning for one’s number of children is not one of the officially recognized health issues. Wasn’t the “morning after pill” supposedly the way to avoid legislation that forced women to give birth to unwanted pregnancies? A way to restore “choice” to have a child to the woman without government involved in that decision? Even then, few would argue that the right to “choice” in pregnancy meant that it was an unfettered right. It was never more of a right than underage drinking, smoking tobacco, underage sexual partners, sex between consenting adults, and driving a motor vehicle. At some point, when a society draws a line between privileges and liberty, it’s a political one.
4
Dr. Wen, appreciate this piece and support your nuanced view towards the issue, which, if you look at polls is supported by a majority of voters. Based on this piece, I am re-evaluating my support of Planned Parenthood.
8
This is terrifying. Dr. Wen has deliberately driven a wedge between PP and its supporters, and the NY Times has enabled it. There’s an urgent “other side” to Dr. Wen’s self-interested narrative - where is it!?
1
It is a shame that good people like Dr. Wen are stymied in their efforts to acknowledge the nuances of all complex problems/issues and the need for a broader view. The middle position recognizes that gray areas can exist, even when we wish they didn't. A statistical bell curve shows that most people can see different angles on different issues. But in 2019, we are driven by the extreme political views of two standard deviations out in the tails of the normal distribution, to our detriment. Those of us who see more than that and realize that extremes cannot win the political battle (without suffering and/or bloodshed) must continue to keep the faith and stay in the arena. Humans are diverse and when we think we can ignore that, we're fooling ourselves. I hope that Dr. Wen and others will not give up. Democracy itself depends on this, in my view.
13
While I agree with Dr. Wen's point of view, her going public with her perspective will only give Planned Parenthood's opponents more ammunition. When fighting attempts to demonize this organization, supporters often referred to its larger mission of women's health care, and insisted that abortion services were just a small part of what PP provided. Now its foes on the right can justly say, "Planned Parenthood is only about abortion. Its former director said it herself."
15
@SRF
PP should have thought about that before they made the decision to clearly focus on politics. And maybe this will help others understand that those apposing PP may be doing so because they have always understood how political PP is.
2
Leana, I am in complete agreement with you. The mingling of women's health issues and politics is a toxic one. It encourages the whole populace to think they have a right to weigh in on any woman's healthcare decisions. You will be missed.
12
Thank you, Dr. Wen, for this article and for your efforts.
Having been a PP donor, I’d come to see PP in the last few years as another large organization that, no matter how much I contributed, was more focused on sending (often justifiably) shrill but relentlessly frequent solicitations for money. I included PP in my list of annual donations for years. I got tired of seeing my donations used to chase more money from me. I’d given what I could.
I support PP’s health care mission and support of all options for women’s health, but have stopped donating and unsubscribed. Same goes for HSUS, ASPCA, ACLU and other large national nonprofits with lobbying at their core who seem to spend enormous amounts to chase money from me.
Lobbying is obviously important with the flood of corporate money to DC and state capitals. And I’m willing to support groups in that mission. But making that predominate, using a funding model that seems exploitative of donors and not informing donors of how funds are used (with a primary focus on services) isn’t really where I want to donate.
I don’t have an answer to the problem of how PP does better at that, but yours seems pretty reasonable to me. It’s a shame that some of us are only learning of it now. Perhaps it didn’t provide the right fodder for the type of fundraising PP does?
Best to you and keep up your fine work.
9
This person must be quite naive to think that reproductive decisions are "health"issues and not "political" issues. The extreme right wing and the state governments they control could care less about a woman's health. It is all about politics.
If she does not understand the powerful political forces that have successfully denied women across America adequate reproductive care, she is nit fit to lead Planned Parenthood. She may be a fine doctor, but not a smart tactician or very politically astute.
If she thins she can work as a doctor and not be controlled and influenced by political forces she is very naive, indeed.
66
The anti-abortion position has never been about "life." It has been about using pregnancy to punish sex, especially sex outside of marriage. Otherwise, you would not find anti-public-healthcare war-mongers who oppose abortion, verifying the old adage that their "concern for life begins at conception and ends at birth." Abortion became an issue in the culture war over gender roles, and solidified after that.
These same (anti-abortion) people oppose sex education, even though sex education is proven to lower the numbers of abortions. For them, pregnancies and babies punish sex, and an abortion ends the punishment-of-sex that they seek.
At the same time, the pro-choice folks cannot keep acting like an abortion is not a sad and bad thing. It ends a potential human life. Removing a fetus from the womb is not merely sneezing. It is a tragedy that we should prevent with better birth control education.
Pro-choice people act as if admitting the tragedy of an abortion will only inflame the anti-abortion folks, and so they feel they must articulate a morally offensive equivalence between a fetus and an appendix. In short, Ms. Wen, abortion is not merely "healthcare."
For me, an abortion is a privatized decision of justifiable homicide that is none of my business. Throughout history mothers have always exercised population control decisions through infanticide. Abortion is better than that, and birth control is even better. The decision is hard, and not mine to make.
13
@Craig Mason it’s Dr. Wen.
2
Somehow I don't think we are getting the whole story here.
What she outlines is not so radically different from everything Planned Parenthood has stood for that it would be cause for a dismissal. If anything, Planned Parenthood would not want this kind of bad press...or even invite it unless there was something seriously wrong.
I think "the other side" is being tactfully silent in what looks like an unpleasant management decision.
To me this looks like someone wanting to have the last word. Makes me think maybe she was not the right person for the job...
49
What a novel idea "Can we put aside partisan differences to do what is best for the people we serve?" I couldn't agree more. While Roe v Wade has always been divisive for some, the vast majority accepted it as settled law, now it is blood sport. It is one of many signs of how low the Republican party will go to dredge up anything it can to divide us.
12
PP has always been a front and center in your face political advocate. So much so that the extremist have weaponized PP and declared abortion, an an ugly, horrific word, as women’s healthcare in order to downplay the imagery.
Dr. Wen may sound noble in her actions, but PP is a very large part of the 1.2 million abortions performed every year. A startling number as it far exceeds live births in many nations.
But she is correct. The future of PP is threatened now more than any other time in their history, the tide is turning, science is catching up. Rather than constantly vilify the pro-choice crowd and constantly politicize the issue, it would be better to lay low, and face facts that these full term abortion activists and lawmakers are not doing PP any favors
3
Thank you for earnestly trying to do what needed to be done.
9
Well written article, thanks for sharing.
This is another reminder of how politicized we have become as a nation. All aspects of our lives: family, industries, leisure, work, etc. just become extremes of “are you in my camp or not?”
Perhaps when bell bottoms make a comeback so will tolerance.
69
@Frank. Tolerance actually left the building when too many people signed onto the idea that bell bottoms, beards and long hair on men were communistic or the devil''s work - about 1967.
2
@Frank I am ready to start wearing bell bottoms.
2
I really believe in a holistic approach to women’s reproductive healthcare and abortion as part of all the choices a woman should have, but not the only one. I also believe in what this column manifest about defending Planned Parenthood from a not-only-abortion perspective. However, I don’t think the only way to depoliticized PP is to deny the already political implications the organization has. Many anti-abortion groups have organized for many years to politically attack PP and with the Supreme Court at its side, they are in the best position ever. They played the long game and, unfortunately, PP is on their target no matter how much is said about its holistic approach mission. I believe that the former president will continue working to protect PP to achieve a middle ground between politics and healthcare.
21
We do need to emphasize that if you don't like abortion, there are tactics more reasonable than outlawing for others who need it. Free birth control, better sex ed, free maternal care for the poor, and support for poor families and working families with handicapped children. The states with the most onerous restrictions have the highest birth rates to unmarried women and the worst health and education records.
350
The suggestions above are what the pro-life movement should be about: preventing abortion and caring for children and families.
19
@kathryn Thank you. In addition, if only Right to Life advocates would realize that providing safe and ready access to birth control and early abortion services (including abortion pill) many fewer people would seek an abortion later in the pregnancy.
It is so sad that poor people or young people in right-wing states are the ones that cannot get an safe, early abortion, whereas people with means will find a way to get one.
30
@ERT Good to know. They seem quite vocal about the "preventing abortion" piece; caring for children and families, not so much. How is it this message got lost?
6
Yes, yes, and yes! Your loss is definitely the loss of all women who rely upon the broader range of services that Planned Parenthood has offered. It seems that you and your ideas have fallen victim to the same radical view of all or nothing that is currently enveloping our country. Sometimes you have to reach out, talk, and let the conversation gel to get the results that you want. This approach is not a capitulation but a wise, stalwart one. Keep the fight and the faith!
76
The author has put forth a very logical reasoning to strike the middle ground and be inclusive. I would like to hear the other side but the doctor’s approach seems to be the right one.
56
@Sri Sambamurthy The other side calls you a baby killer, whether you're a 12 year old child impregnated by your brother, or the doctor doing the abortion. Women are to have babies every time a man has sex with them. If you want to be free of that, get pregnant, that's birth control for 9 months. The other side has ramped up the rhetoric every time women's health providers talk about health.
Politics is about power, morality and service are afterthoughts. It is an open question on how and if they overlap.
3
After reading this article, I am relieved that Ms. Wen no longer heads Planned Parenthood. She did not represent the mission of Planned Parenthood to provide access to safe and affordable abortion services. In a time when women's rights are under assult, we don't need a woman heading this important organization who thinks religious nonsense should be allowed to infiltrate medical decisions. Across the nation a woman's right to choose abortion is under assault.
The assault should not be coming from within this essential organization.
234
I thought the mission of Planned Parenthood was to provide more than just abortion services. I support their efforts to provide mammograms, education on contraception, health screenings, and much more. If all they are is an abortion mill then they should not receive federal funding.
34
@Lee. A major issue in the US (I am British ) appears to be access to readily available contraception. In the UK ,contraception is easily available and often free. This plus education has led to the abortion rates in teenagers plummeting. The lesson is clear.
If both sides spent as much time and money lobbying for improved access to contraception.the need for abortion would decrease. Some women , usually in unfortunate circumstance ,would still request an abortion.
Women's health services is about more than abortion.
If PP is only about abortion . Dr Wen can help women more by employment elsewhere.
44
I'm sorry Lee but nowhere in this article did I see a reference to religion influence on health care.
15
The direction you were taking was a good one. Perhaps a privately funded not for profit will look to you to set up a planned parenthood type facility that embraces your vision.
19
You need to tell us more. Be specific and name names. We agree with you, not them. Who are “they”? This debate needs to be brought out of the boardroom and into the public. This should not be yet another hot button political issue.
12
Thank you, Dr. Wen. Please keep in touch and making a difference.
19
Thanks for filling in the blanks.
After the Alabama "events" I wrote several blog articles stating your case: abortion is not about politics; it is about women & children's healthcare.
A number of years ago, I was asked to lead a group through a philosophical change in their organization. We make progress & had set backs. Some people got it; some people didn't.
After 5 years, I stepped down. The core of the group realized that after seeing up close the cost of change, they did not want to go in the new direction. Stepping aside was my only choice as I couldn't force others to think differently. It was a church.
You're tough & smart. You'll grieve & you'll get through this. Hold on to your truth. Do the next right thing.
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@David Hapner. I'm sorry, but abortion IS all about politics. Alabama and the drive of other states to outlaw abortion is TOTALLY political and has absolutely nothing to do with the health or women or children. They could care less about women or children - witness how fast the woman and child are abandoned as soon as that baby is born. Health care for the born and the mother? Forget it. I'm reminded of an old tombstone I saw in a very old cemetery - a baby's, it said "Illegitimate - Murdered." That's how they handled the unwanted a hundred years ago. Now we just let illness and poor nutrition do them in.
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