Now hiring: Abortion crusader

Less than a year after hiring Leana Wen as president, Planned Parenthood fired the physician and former Baltimore health commissioner on Tuesday over a clash of goals for the nation’s largest abortion provider.

“I just learned that the [Planned Parenthood] Board ended my employment at a secret meeting,” Wen tweeted after the firing. “We were engaged in good faith negotiations about my departure based on philosophical differences over the direction and future of Planned Parenthood.”

Penny Nance, president of Concerned Women for America, told me it was telling that the firing came directly on the heels of the Trump administration’s announcement it would enforce new Title X rules that keep federal family planning funds from going to abortion centers.

“The crux of the issue is the fact that Planned Parenthood is watching their influence slip away,” Nance said. “And they’re getting kind of desperate. And what we see often in these kinds of situations as organizations implode is they blame each other. The issue is not Leana Wen. The issue is the mission of Planned Parenthood.”

Wen herself said that she was working to “depoliticize Planned Parenthood” and incorporate healthcare for women “before, during and after pregnancies,” but she faced heavy opposition from other members of leadership. “In the end, I was asked to leave for the same reason I was hired: I was changing the direction of Planned Parenthood,” she said.

Wen broke the pro-abortion mold last month when she wrote about the emotional pain of her miscarriage. While she said it furthered her commitment to promote access to abortion, she still drew attention to the love and hope she felt for her unborn child. She also said she was reaching across battle lines to pro-life advocates who supported Planned Parenthood’s nonabortion work and was working to promote an image of Planned Parenthood that was primarily one of healthcare—not just abortion.

Apparently it wasn’t an image Planned Parenthood wanted.

Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of the pro-life Susan B. Anthony List, likened Wen’s hire to an experiment gone wrong.

“Abortion is not healthcare, and dressing it up in a white coat has not fooled the American people, so they fall back on the mainstay of their political machine,” Dannenfelser said in a statement.

Wen said she would likely return to practicing medicine in Baltimore. In the meantime, Planned Parenthood announced that Alexis McGill Johnson will serve as acting president, whom the abortion giant called a “social justice advocate” with strong roots in political activism. In an open letter, McGill Johnson sounded a call to defend abortion access and to fight for LGBTQ causes.

Regardless of who leads Planned Parenthood, pro-life advocates still have the same job, Students for Life of America President Kristan Hawkins said in a statement.

“The musical chairs at the top of the nation’s No. 1 abortion vendor will not change the pro-life commitment to confronting them in court, in the legislatures, and on the campaign trail,” Hawkins said. “Women don’t need what Planned Parenthood is selling. Pregnancy is not a disease cured by abortion, and with federally qualified health centers standing by to offer true, full-service healthcare, women have lots of options that don’t include abortion.”

A pro-life advocate waves to a Planned Parenthood staff member in St. Louis on June 28. Associated Press/Photo by Robert Cohen/St. Louis Post-Dispatch

HHS pauses Title X enforcement

The Trump administration said Saturday it would give abortion centers two more months to comply with new Title X rules written to prevent federal dollars from funding abortion.

The rules, which were originally set to take effect July 15, stipulate Title X participants cannot co-locate with abortion centers or perform or refer for abortions.

Pro-life advocates celebrated earlier this month after the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled again in favor of the regulations.

“Implementing the Protect Life Rule makes sense when you consider all the funds misused by abortion vendors to sell abortions to unsuspecting women,” Kristan Hawkins, president of Students for Life of America, said in a statement last week.

For Planned Parenthood, about $60 million hangs in the balance. Liberty Counsel Chairman Mat Staver said in a statement that it perhaps led to the organization’s ousting former President Leana Wen.

“Planned Parenthood is in turmoil because it’s losing tens of millions of dollars of taxpayer money,” Staver said. “Apparently, the president was not radical enough for this giant abortion mill. … Planned Parenthood performed nearly one-half of all abortions in the U.S. in 2017. That is an average of 911 abortions each day. That is human genocide for profit. Americans do not want to fund the destruction of innocent human life.” —S.G.

A pro-life advocate waves to a Planned Parenthood staff member in St. Louis on June 28. Associated Press/Photo by Robert Cohen/St. Louis Post-Dispatch

Another Charlie Gard?

The United Kingdom has earned a reputation for refusing to transport sick children to hospitals willing to treat them. Now Royal London Hospital said it will not release 5-year-old Tafida Raqeeb for treatment in Genoa, Italy. The child is in a coma from a brain injury caused by a burst blood vessel.

The case resembles those of Charlie Gard and Alfie Evans, both of whom died after lengthy court battles over their treatment. Also in their cases, other doctors and hospitals were willing to treat them, but the hospital where the children stayed would not allow the parents to take them. The doctors eventually prevailed in ending all treatment and allowing the children to die.

Rod Liddle, associate editor of The Sun in Britain, wrote in a commentary that it is “beyond imagination” that doctors would keep Tafida hostage when another hospital is willing to treat her. He compared her case to Ashya King’s, whose parents abducted him from his U.K. hospital to get treatment in Prague. The treatment was successful, and Ashya was declared cancer-free last year.

“There is often a lack of adequate communication with patients and their parents about diagnoses and prognoses,” Liddle wrote. “[Physicians] think they always know best. Yet sometimes they do not. We need a law to stop doctors overriding the wishes of parents in cases where children are assumed to be beyond recovery.” —S.G.

7-Eleven celebrates life

The convenience store chain 7-Eleven celebrated the birth of J’Aime Brown not with a Slurpee but with a pledge of $7,111 to her college fund. St. Louis residents Rachel Langford and Johntez Brown welcomed their baby girl at SSM Health St. Mary's Hospital on July 11 at 7:11 p.m. She weighed 7 pounds, 11 ounces. The company also gave the family diapers, 7-Eleven onesies, and other gifts “to help her parents along the way,” the company said. —S.G.