Patterico's Pontifications

7/16/2019

Early Termination: Leana Wen Ousted As President Of Planned Parenthood

Filed under: General — Dana @ 3:47 pm



[guest post by Dana]

She was not given a choice.

Planned Parenthood President Dr. Wen tweeted this earlier today:

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

She subsequently released this statement:

As a physician and public health leader, I came to Planned Parenthood to lead a national health organization that provides essential primary and preventive care to millions of underserved women and families, and to advocate for a broad range of policies that affect our patients’ health. I believe that the way to protect abortion care is to be clear that it is not a political issue but a health care one, and that we can expand support for reproductive rights by finding common ground with the large majority of Americans who understand reproductive health care as the fundamental health care that it is.

I am leaving because the new Board Chairs and have philosophical difference over the direction and future of Planned Parenthood. It has been an honor and privilege to serve alongside dedicated doctors, nurses, clinicians, staff and volunteers who are on the frontlines of health care in our country. I will always stand with Planned Parenthood, as I continue my life’s’ work and mission of care for and fighting for women, families, and communities.

Planned Parenthood has always been and will always be, first and foremost, about abortion.

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Apparently there were concerns about her management style that were unable to be resolved:

“This had everything to do with her management style and challenges with her leadership,” the source said, requesting anonymity to speak freely. “Everything from creating a culture of mistrust among staff, having a very insular communication style. Only wanting to talk and communicate with a small number of people she brought in. Not wanting to work with existing experts.”

But here’s the real bottom line: Wen was not seen as forceful enough in the fight to protect abortion rights. This is an especially critical time for the abortion industry given that the presidential election is right around the corner and that a number of states have recently pushed through life-protecting legislation:

The people familiar with the move said there had been internal strife over her management, and that the group felt it needed a more aggressive political leader to fight the efforts to roll back access to abortions.

C’mon people, quotas must be met! Through the ninth month, we let nothing come between a baby and the blade! Those Lamborghinis aren’t gonna buy themselves, are they?!

(Cross-posted at The Jury Talks Back.)

–Dana

26 Responses to “Early Termination: Leana Wen Ousted As President Of Planned Parenthood”

  1. I’ve been thinking a lot lately about this strange season we are in: At least 20 people vying to become the next POTUS are unabashedly supporting abortion through the ninth month. Not only are they fighting to allow a full-term baby to be killed in the womb, they are fighting against allowing comfort care to be given a baby who survives the efforts to kill it. They are fighting to kill a full-term baby. They are fighting against born-alive protection acts. They are fighting for death. That this realization doesn’t repel a person, and cause a complete fracture of despair past the bone into the farthest reaches of the soul, renders me speechless.

    Dana (bb0678)

  2. To the sickened soul, the love of God is perceived as hot coals upon the head.

    felipe (023cc9)

  3. She was not pro-abortion enough for them? In retrospect … her decision to change the public relations strategy to “women’s health” from “my body, my choice” may have been as much to sell it to herself as to sell it to the public.

    nk (dbc370)

  4. I agree, nk. I don’t think Americans bought into the “women’s health” lie.

    Dana (bb0678)

  5. I find it very interesting that Planned Parenthood has announced that they won’t begin to search for a permanent replacement until early next year, with the goal of finding someone by the end of the year. Imagine going with an interim president for the entire 2020 election season. Is that some sort of subconscious acknowledgement that avidly pushing abortion rights is not going to be a winning issue for Democrats in the coming election?

    JVW (54fd0b)

  6. Hm, interesting, JVW. It could be. However, the interim president, who is a self-professed Christian, appears to be tougher than Wen ever was about abortion rights, and yet more proficient in the art of deception. Maybe this is her audition for a permanent spot as president.

    Dana (bb0678)

  7. ‘interim’ aka ‘acting’ office holder. It’s a very in management practice these days.

    Ask the White House for details.

    DCSCA (797bc0)

  8. What’s Wendy Davis doing these days?

    nk (dbc370)

  9. Well, if you want to believe a writer from BuzzFeed has legitimate sources at Planned Parenthood:

    Ema O’Connor @o_ema
    UPDATE: Two sources told us that Wen also refused to use “trans-inclusive” language, for example saying “people” instead of “women,” telling staff that she believed talking about transgender issues would “isolate people in the Midwest.”
    3:44 PM · Jul 16, 2019

    ——

    Ema O’Connor @o_em
    Wen sometimes went through PP’s press releases and docs, deleting the word “sexual” from the phrase “sexual and reproductive health,” the source said. She also resisted using “abortion” as a stand-alone, preferring “abortion care” or other phrases entirely
    3:46 PM · Jul 16, 2019

    JVW (54fd0b)

  10. Leana Wen is, you know, an actual doctor, so I guess she might be queasy about this whole idea of “men” needing access to abortions.

    The height of stupidity would be for the President to poke his nose into this mess, so I give it about a 50/50 chance of happening.

    JVW (54fd0b)

  11. There’s also some gossip on the BuzzFeed writer’s Twitter suggesting that Dr. Wen’s leadership style was seriously lacking, as Dana mentioned in the post. PP supposedly had to bring in a management consulting firm to try to fix the bad atmosphere in the office under her leadership.

    JVW (54fd0b)

  12. She is an exceptional person in many ways. Immigrant from Shanghai, entered college at age 13, medical school, Rhodes Scholar, public health officer at Baltimore. A lot of things about the abortion cult might have grated on her.

    nk (dbc370)

  13. The *petulant, privileged, bourgeois American* abortion cult.

    nk (dbc370)

  14. They should’ve left her in the spot and forcibly removed her just before the end of her term.

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  15. 6…

    “She was practiced at the art of deception
    Well, I could tell by her blood-stained hands”

    —- Jagger/Richards

    Colonel Haiku (2601c0)

  16. A micrometer on topic, but this makes me question the presidential primary election calendar and the fickleness of the above i-70 midwestern voter: http://www.yahoo.com/news/emails-show-iowa-officials-tupac-170645997.html

    urbanleftbehind (283670)

  17. Wow, urbanleftbehind, what a weird story. It practically requires its own blog post to do it justice. Man, that guy was running a state department responsible for spending $7 billion in tax revenue, and prior to that he was a law professor. Is he just a guy with a kind of off-the-wall quirk, or is he a full-blown nutjob? And how many guys like that are rattling around in various levels of government?

    JVW (54fd0b)

  18. To each Democrat candidate I would ask: “Should it be legal to jab a pair of scissors into a baby’s fetus’s head as it is crowning? Yes or No?”

    Kevin M (21ca15)

  19. Is that some sort of subconscious acknowledgement that avidly pushing abortion rights is not going to be a winning issue for Democrats in the coming election?

    Or more cynically, can make statements during the campaign that can be later disowned.

    Kevin M (21ca15)

  20. If your not willing to give post natal abortions to right to lifers your not militant enough.

    lany (4866c0)

  21. Here’s the thing: as time goes on and the Progressives push farther left (esp w/abortion) they are no longer militant but more normalized. It’s weird though because through the 9th month is not popular with the public.

    Dana (bb0678)

  22. @JVW,

    UPDATE: Two sources told us that Wen also refused to use “trans-inclusive” language, for example saying “people” instead of “women,” telling staff that she believed talking about transgender issues would “isolate people in the Midwest.”

    So basically she was fired because she chose to hold to her views of science (as a medical doctor).

    Dana (bb0678)

  23. The Washington Post lies in their report about Wen:

    The federal government’s $260 million family planning program serves 4 million women with low-cost or free health care services, including mammograms and Pap smears. About 40 percent of those patients are currently seen at Planned Parenthood and its affiliates.”

    The claim has been repeatedly debunked – by their own freaking fact-checkers!. But adding mammograms to the list only adds to the “women’s healthcare” claim.

    Dana (bb0678)

  24. Dana,

    It’s the “3rd Party” syndrome, where the faction that is willing to push the envelope further out sets the bar and anyone who resists that latest push is shunned. Not just on the Left, either. There are limits eventually (the Libertarians had some NAMBLA supporters, until they didn’t).

    But it is a worrisome sign when one or both major parties starts with this kind of purity posturing.

    Kevin M (21ca15)

  25. Yes, Kevin, especially when you consider there really isn’t any farther left to go on the issue of abortion. As more states push to have it legalized through the ninth month, and support denying care after failed abortion, what else is left, where else can they go with the issue itself?

    Dana (bb0678)


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