michael barbaro

From The New York Times, I’m Michael Barbaro. This is “The Daily.” Today: After just eight months on the job, the head of Planned Parenthood has been forced out. What her departure reveals about what the organization thinks it can and cannot be in this moment. It’s Tuesday, July 23. Congratulations on making your “Daily” debut.

sarah kliff

Thank you. I’m excited.

michael barbaro

It’s going to be great.

sarah kliff

I hope so. It will be.

michael barbaro

Of course it’s going to be great. We don’t really have a choice. We only make one episode a day.

sarah kliff

O.K.

michael barbaro

Everybody good? Sarah Kliff writes about health care for The Times. Sarah, how did the head of Planned Parenthood explain her decision to resign?

sarah kliff

So last week, Dr. Leana Wen posted a two-paragraph statement, where she said, “I am leaving because the new board chairs and I have philosophical differences over the direction and the future of Planned Parenthood.”

michael barbaro

And what is she talking about?

sarah kliff

So this was really a difference about who Planned Parenthood is. Are they a major advocate for abortion rights who are going to be fighting all these bans on abortion that we’re seeing, or are they primarily a chain of 600 health clinics that are filling in the safety net of the United States?

michael barbaro

So are they a health care organization or an abortion rights advocacy group, or are they both?

sarah kliff

Right, and I think a core question is do they, at this particular moment for abortion rights in America, do they have the luxury of choosing to be one or the other, or do they have to be two really different things at the exact same time?

michael barbaro

So how does Dr. Leana Wen fit into that tension? What is her story prior to coming to Planned Parenthood?

sarah kliff

She is a doctor and a health care professional by training. She is someone who is showing up on all these lists of rising stars in health care, an influential person, and she has a really impressive resume.

archived recording (leana wen) Becoming a doctor was my dream. When I was 8, my parents and I moved to the U.S., and ours became the typical immigrant narrative. My parents cleaned hotel rooms and washed dishes and pumped gas so that I could pursue my dream. Well, eventually I learned enough English.

sarah kliff

She finished college when she was 18.

michael barbaro

Wow.

archived recording (leana wen) And my parents were so happy the day that I got into medical school and took my oath of healing and service.

sarah kliff

She became health commissioner of Baltimore when she was 35. She gave this really widely watched TED Talk about the things doctors don’t tell you.

archived recording (leana wen) We’re scared of patients finding out who we are and what medicine is all about. And so what do we do? We put on our white coats and we hide behind them.

sarah kliff

And in Baltimore she was really known for having innovative policies. One of the things I knew her for best at the time was she wrote a blanket prescription for the entire city for naloxone, this opioid overdose reversal drug, and that was seen as something different and big.

archived recording Dr. Wen said so far 531 people have been saved from an overdose with naloxone. Dr. Wen said people with substance abuse problems deserve compassion and respect, and it is important to provide the public with the skills to use naloxone to save lives.

michael barbaro

And so what in particular about that resume was appealing to Planned Parenthood?

sarah kliff

Well, I think it represents a big shift for Planned Parenthood. Before Dr. Wen, for more than 10 years, they’d been led by Cecile Richards, who comes from a very different background —

archived recording (cecile richards) For the majority of people in this country, Planned Parenthood is not the problem. We’re the solution.

sarah kliff

— from a background that is purely politics. Her mother is Ann Richards, the former governor of Texas, outspoken abortion advocate. Cecile worked on the Hill for Nancy Pelosi before taking her position with Planned Parenthood.

michael barbaro

So the last president, Cecile Richards, was, first, an activist. Dr. Wen came in first as a doctor.

sarah kliff

She comes in in a moment when Planned Parenthood is tied to the fight over abortion rights in ways that it hasn’t been before.

archived recording (mike pence) The need for a permanent government-wide prohibition on taxpayer funding for abortion has probably never been more important.

sarah kliff

Over the past decade, really tracing back to 2011, there has been this growing fight over defunding Planned Parenthood.

archived recording (mike pence) I also think now is the time to end taxpayer funding not only for abortion, but also for abortion providers.

sarah kliff

The idea really comes up when then-Congressman Mike Pence, now Vice President Mike Pence, introduces his first bill to defund Planned Parenthood in 2011.

archived recording (mike pence) Abortion is a heartbreaking billion-dollar industry that mostly benefits Planned Parenthood, and I believe the time has come for that to end.

sarah kliff

And it snowballs.

archived recording The American people do not want federally funded abortions.

sarah kliff

So you see, in 2011, the House votes to defund Planned Parenthood.

archived recording Federal funding of abortion will lead to more abortion.

sarah kliff

In 2015, the House and the Senate vote to defund Planned Parenthood, but President Obama vetoes it.

archived recording (barack obama) Democrats are ready to sit down and negotiate with Republicans right now, but it should be over legitimate issues, like how much do we invest in education, job training and infrastructure, not unrelated ideological issues like Planned Parenthood.

sarah kliff

In 2016, Republicans add language about defunding Planned Parenthood to their official party platform for the first time.

archived recording (mike pence) I’d like to see Roe v. Wade overturned and consigned to the ash heap of history.

sarah kliff

So this is growing, and Planned Parenthood is becoming a more political organization because they’re under more political attack.

archived recording Hillary Clinton has demonstrated time and time again, she’s tough. She’s ready for the job day one.

sarah kliff

They endorse a candidate for the first time in their hundred-year history during a primary.

archived recording Some news just coming across right now from the Supreme Court. We have just learned that Justice Anthony Kennedy will be retiring.

sarah kliff

Then you have Justice Kennedy announcing his resignation, and all of a sudden, that’s a huge question mark for the future of abortion rights in the United States.

archived recording You are going to see 20 states pass laws banning abortion outright — just banning abortion, because they know that there are now going to be five votes on the Supreme Court to overturn Roe v. Wade.

sarah kliff

And it’s just five days after Justice Kavanaugh’s confirmation hearings, hearings that focus really heavily on the future of abortion rights — that’s when you have Dr. Leana Wen announced as the new president of Planned Parenthood.

michael barbaro

So what does the beginning of her tenure look like, given everything you’ve just laid out?

sarah kliff

It starts off pretty rocky and not necessarily in ways that relate to abortion. There’s this one incident that came up a lot in the reporting my colleague Shane Goldmacher and I were doing where Dr. Wen, on her first day as Planned Parenthood president, she had this interview run in the magazine Elle where she talks about her history and her excitement about being president of Planned Parenthood, and one of the things she does there is describe undocumented workers as illegal immigrants. This upset some people at Planned Parenthood. At a progressive organization, they kind of reject the idea that anyone could be illegal. And it comes up in a staff meeting that happens a few months later, where a young worker kind of confronts Dr. Wen about it, says, this makes it hard for me to organize. We serve people who are undocumented. I prefer if you didn’t use that language. And according to our reporting, she essentially says, I’m not going to apologize for that. So really early on, you’re starting to see these signs of tension between Dr. Wen and the organization she has just started running. You also start seeing some tension around things that are related to abortion and are related to Planned Parenthood’s role as an abortion provider. One of these is a debate about the Planned Parenthood website. Very early on, Dr. Wen suggests adding a bunch of new pages, health information pages, to the main Planned Parenthood website. These would be about things like the common cold, smoking, diabetes, emergency preparedness, not really what you think of when you think of Planned Parenthood. And I ended up seeing some internal emails where this starts to worry the Planned Parenthood staff. They start saying, wait a minute. Why does Planned Parenthood, when we typically don’t treat the common cold, why would we have information about this on our website? And there’s one email that kind of puts the question bluntly, where a Planned Parenthood staff member writes, “Are we the nation’s largest sexual and reproductive health provider, or are we something different?”

michael barbaro

So longtime staff are feeling pretty uneasy about her pretty much from the get-go.

sarah kliff

Yes, and they start to leave. So you start seeing some pretty senior folks, folks who had worked on political organizing for Planned Parenthood, leave the organization. Meanwhile, you’re starting to see this wave of really restrictive abortion bans that start very early in pregnancy.

archived recording 1 Our rights are under attack. What do we do? archived recording 2 Stand up, fight back!

sarah kliff

The first one is in Indiana in April —

archived recording Lawmakers like those here in Indiana keep churning out measure after measure to limit abortion, and they keep getting challenged in court.

sarah kliff

— quickly followed by Georgia —

archived recording The bill makes abortions illegal once a heartbeat is detected in the embryo.

sarah kliff

— Ohio —

archived recording The law bans abortions once a doctor detects a fetal heartbeat.

sarah kliff

— Alabama —

archived recording In Alabama, they’re looking to just have a total abortion ban in the state.

sarah kliff

— Missouri —

archived recording Missouri’s governor signing a law today banning the procedure after eight weeks of pregnancy.

sarah kliff

— Mississippi.

archived recording The law does not make exceptions for pregnancies caused by rape or incest.

sarah kliff

They just keep passing.

archived recording This year alone, 13 other states have introduced or advanced similar legislation.

michael barbaro

And what is Dr. Wen’s response to these state laws?

sarah kliff

So there is an expectation they are going to fight for their lives. They are fighting for their clinics’ ability to exist in the United States, and there are campaigns. Dr. Wen is on television talking about abortion rights.

archived recording (leana wen) This is not a warning. It’s not a drill. It’s not hypothetical. We could face a situation tomorrow where 1.1 million women of reproductive age in Missouri will no longer be able to access abortion care, which is essential health care, in their own state, and have to drive hundreds of miles round to Kansas, to Illinois, just to get health care. And I think it needs to be said that this is a real public health crisis.

sarah kliff

There’s a campaign called “Bans Off My Body.”

archived recording 1 This is my body — archived recording 2 — my life — archived recording 3 — my voice — archived recording 4 — my truth — archived recording 5 — my future — archived recording 6 — my decisions.

sarah kliff

But there’s a sense in the community that it’s not enough. When you look at, for example, the keynote that Dr. Wen gave at Planned Parenthood’s annual conference, it was about expanding into new health care services. It was talking about we’re going to help treat the opioid epidemic, and we’re going to help fight for more mental health coverage. And I don’t think folks at Planned Parenthood necessarily oppose treating opioid addiction and oppose treating mental health issues, but they felt like at this particular moment, the thing we need to focus on is making sure that we have clinics where we can do those things, and we are dangerously close to losing those clinics.

michael barbaro

Well, Sarah, why is that? What is Dr. Wen’s argument for not fighting Republicans as her colleagues and those in the abortion rights movement want her to at this moment?

sarah kliff

She thinks the right strategy is to depoliticize Planned Parenthood, to make it this bigger-tent organization where they talk about all the health care stuff they do that isn’t abortion.

archived recording (trevor noah) What is your idea of what Planned Parenthood is supposed to be doing in this country? archived recording (leana wen) Planned Parenthood is a health care organization. That’s how I got to know Planned Parenthood. My mother was a patient of Planned Parenthood. So was my sister, and so was I.

sarah kliff

And you see this in a lot of the work she did. One of the first major campaigns they run is called “This Is Health Care.” Her vision for Planned Parenthood success is that they’re going to talk about all the different services they do. They are going to find common ground with people who might not support abortion rights but support access to birth control, and in that way, they’re going to chart this path to success where they’re less frequently the subject of the political attacks they’ve been facing relentlessly for the past decade. She has this kind of theory of the case that if we depoliticize Planned Parenthood, if we make it clear that this is a health care issue, not a political issue, that the attacks will lessen, that common ground will be found, and that Planned Parenthood will have a more successful long-term trajectory.

michael barbaro

It will not be so narrowly seen as an abortion provider.

sarah kliff

Right, and this is where a lot of longtime Planned Parenthood staff members clashed with her. They had this view that as long as we are an abortion provider, we’re going to be stuck in this political controversy. Depoliticization doesn’t seem to be an option right now. I think back to an interview I did with Mike Pence in 2011, where he said, as long as Planned Parenthood is doing abortions, I am going to be after them. So there’s this core fight over whether you even can depoliticize Planned Parenthood if they are committed to being an abortion provider and being the largest abortion provider in the United States. So from folks who had kind of been in the trenches of this debate for the past decade, they felt like this vision of just talking about it differently wasn’t going to solve the problem. It could actually be quite risky. If they are not out defending themselves day after day, they might lose the ground that they have right now instead of gaining the new ground that Dr. Wen wants.

[music]

michael barbaro

We’ll be right back. So how does this all come to a head?

sarah kliff

So this really comes to a head about a month ago. These issues have been simmering, and they’re getting worse. There’s frustration among the staff. More and more people are leaving. News outlets are starting to report on the fact that there’s tension at Planned Parenthood. And in mid-June, Dr. Wen is essentially asked to resign from the organization. And there’s about a month of negotiations around how it’s going to happen, a desire to have an amicable parting, but that breaks down last week. Last week, in very quick succession, there is a meeting of the board where they vote to fire her. My colleague Shane Goldmacher reports that Leana Wen has been fired. She posts a statement on Twitter attacking Planned Parenthood.

archived recording Wen said those philosophical differences about the future of the organization are why she was fired, writing, “I came to Planned Parenthood to run a national health care organization and to advocate for the broad range of public health policies that affect our patients’ health. However, the new board leadership has determined that the priority of Planned Parenthood moving forward is to double down on abortion rights advocacy.”

sarah kliff

And this amicable parting that had been desired about a month ago quickly falls apart.

michael barbaro

Sarah, is this an example of Planned Parenthood not knowing who they were hiring when they bet on this doctor, this health care professional with this holistic vision, or is it they didn’t understand the depth of the threats against them at the time that they hired her?

sarah kliff

I think it’s a mix of both of those. I don’t think they understood until Dr. Wen was actually there leading the organization the difference in the visions that they had. Nobody hires a new chief executive for an organization hoping that they will leave eight months later. They clearly thought Dr. Wen was going to be a successful leader. And that being said, it seems clear in retrospect she was not the right leader for the organization. That fact was probably forced out in the open earlier than it might have been in a different year because of this intense political battle that’s happening.

michael barbaro

From everything you’re saying, it feels like Dr. Wen’s departure is a kind of win for abortion rights advocates in this moment, but I wonder if another way of thinking about it is that it’s also a win for opponents of abortion rights, because those opponents want Planned Parenthood to just be an abortion provider and an abortion rights advocate and nothing more, and the group just rejected a vision for making it about something much more.

sarah kliff

Yeah. If you looked at the groups that oppose abortion rights, they saw this whole incident as Planned Parenthood showing its true colors.

archived recording A stunning move from Planned Parenthood tonight. The organization has ousted its president, a medical doctor, after less than a year, because, perhaps, she was not woke enough.

sarah kliff

You have this leader who wants to be a health care organization, and she gets ousted, and look at what that shows you about Planned Parenthood and their priorities.

archived recording Make no mistake. Today’s happenings show that Planned Parenthood is a political machine, that their bottom line is about abortion. It’s not about health care. And Leana Wen’s quick departure after less than a year of heading up Planned Parenthood just underscores the fact that this is a political organization.

sarah kliff

So they’re almost celebrating this moment and saying, we told you so. This is exactly what Planned Parenthood is about.

archived recording You would think that Planned Parenthood would say, hey, let’s take it easy, especially in this political election season. No. Instead, they’re saying, our president — our president, meaning the president of Planned Parenthood — is not radical enough. She just wasn’t radical enough.

michael barbaro

They’re sort of crowing at what they’re seeing here.

sarah kliff

Exactly.

archived recording This is what liberals and Democrats are doing to each other now.

sarah kliff

Earlier today, I talked to one of the folks who left Planned Parenthood, and she was saying, I would love to live in a world where we don’t talk about the politics of abortion. That is the place I want to be. I want to be where Dr. Wen is right now and talking about all the great health care services that we provide, but we’re just not there right now. We do the politics out of necessity. We combat the attacks to keep our clinics open. They want to live in the world that Dr. Leana Wen has outlined, but right now, they can’t.

[music]

michael barbaro

Sarah, thank you very much.

sarah kliff

Thanks for having me.

michael barbaro

To replace Dr. Wen, Planned Parenthood has named an acting president, Alexis Johnson. In a statement, the group described Johnson as, quote, “a renowned social justice leader, lifelong political organizer and a tireless advocate for reproductive rights and access to quality, affordable health care.” We’ll be right back. Here’s what else you need to know today. On Monday, in a dramatic escalation of the campaign to oust Puerto Rico’s governor, tens of thousands of protesters filled a major highway in San Juan, paralyzing the capital city.

archived recording (ricardo rosselló) [SPEAKING SPANISH]

michael barbaro

The protests were prompted by hundreds of leaked text messages that captured the cozy relationship between the governor, Ricardo Rosselló, and special interests, and showed him mocking his own citizens.

archived recording (ricardo rosselló) [SPEAKING SPANISH]

michael barbaro

In a concession to the protesters, the governor said on Sunday that he would not seek re-election, but so far, he has refused to step down. And —

archived recording (donald trump) We’re having very good talks with the speaker of the House, with Nancy Pelosi. We’re having very good talks with Chuck Schumer and, of course, with Mitch McConnell.

michael barbaro

Congress and the White House have reached a two-year budget deal that would raise spending by $320 billion and avoid a fiscal showdown until after the 2020 presidential election.

archived recording (donald trump) Very important that we take care of our military. Our military was depleted, and in the last two and a half years we’ve undepleted it, O.K., to put it mildly.

michael barbaro