Ashley McGuire

Opinion contributor

There are public relations problems and there are public relations crises. Then there is what Planned Parenthood is experiencing with the departure of its former president, Dr. Leana Wen.

Wen, the first doctor to run the abortion chain in nearly five decades, is not going quietly into the night. Rather, she is essentially blowing the whistle on the organization on her way out the door, making her the most senior staff member ever to publicly duke it out with the billion dollar behemoth.

Wen smartly got ahead of the narrative, laying down rhetorical stakes in a tweet immediately after news broke of her firing. She and Planned Parenthood had "philosophical differences." She wanted Planned Parenthood to prioritize women’s health. The board did not.

In a piece for the Sunday pages of The New York Times, Wen expanded on what she meant by women’s health. Planned Parenthood has a duty, she argued, “to increase care for women before, during and after pregnancies,” care such as mental health care for women suffering from postpartum depression or treatment for pregnant women struggling with addiction. Though I am an ardent anti-abortion activist, I found myself admiring Wen for what is clearly a genuine commitment to providing care and treatment to women as a whole.

Women's health as a front, not an aim

Here’s why I also admire Wen. As she makes clear, the board that hired her tasked her with refashioning the organization — beleaguered by things like prior President Cecile Richards' highly publicized admission that Planned Parenthood doesn’t offer mammograms, or campaigns catching them offering ultrasounds only to confirm fetal gestational age for an abortion — as one that is about women’s health, not just abortion advocacy.

Abortion access:Texas made it hard to have my abortion. With Roe at stake, I’m going home to expand access.

With a wink and nod of course.

No doubt what the board really meant was Wen should pretend Planned Parenthood care about the full spectrum of women’s health, not actually start implementing programs that amounted to “mission creep,” as anonymous staff called it in The Times. Board members wanted to use Wen’s medical credentials and obvious passion for women’s health care to prop up the sagging myth that Planned Parenthood is more than just the most well-oiled abortion lobbying machine in the world. No doubt Wen figured it out, and refused to play along.

Planned Parenthood is vulnerable

Then came the biggest legal and financial blow dealt to Planned Parenthood perhaps ever. Undoubtedly, it was expecting the new regulation from the Department of Health and Human Services requiring family planning clinics that receive taxpayer dollars not to promote abortion as a method of family planning to be struck down in court. Shockingly, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the rule, meaning that tens of millions of Planned Parenthood dollars, in addition to its entire business model, are now on the line.

The day after the Trump administration announced it would begin enforcing the rule immediately, Wen was out.

Coincidence? Hardly.

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Wen’s departure has left Planned Parenthood perhaps more exposed than ever. She didn’t just ding the organization for failing to prioritize women’s health. She irreversibly exploded the myth that comprehensive women’s health is something it cares about. The proof is Planned Parenthood's willingness to take the extreme public heat for firing a passionate young doctor, and a minority immigrant at that, eight months into the job because the board so badly wants to protect access to abortion and little else. That board members were OK with being exposed as a pure political advocacy group despite the public relations toll it would bear belies just how extreme they have become.

Wen forced out for moderation

Wen also revealed her willingness and interest in working with those who disagreed about abortion. Though her goal was, as she put it, “to normalize abortion care as the health care it is,” she also wanted to help find “space for those of us in the middle to come together around shared values.”

The problem is that, for pro-lifers, there is no middle ground on abortion. It is, every single time, the unjust and violent taking of a life from the most vulnerable class of human beings. We will never stop working until it is not just illegal but unthinkable. An important part of that work is exposing Planned Parenthood for what it really is, a taxpayer-funded abortion political advocacy group and abortion chain. By firing its best hope at masking that reality, Planned Parenthood is now doing our work for us.

Ashley McGuire is a senior fellow with The Catholic Association and the author of "Sex Scandal: The Drive to Abolish Male and Female." Follow her on Twitter: @AshMcG