Planned Parenthood Blockbuster: New York Times Reports ‘Failed Abortions, Misplaced IUDs, Inadequately Trained Staff’
A bombshell report published Saturday at the New York Times reveals “scores of allegations” against Planned Parenthood, the abortion industry giant that – along with leftist politicians and a complicit media – has fostered the narrative that taking the life of unborn babies is “women’s health care.”
Following a review of clinic documents and legal filings, in addition to interviews with numerous former and current Planned Parenthood staff, the Times discovered abortion clinics that are operating with “aging equipment” and “poorly trained staff” who have allegedly placed women – as well as their babies – in danger.
One of the numerous complaints against Planned Parenthood affiliates described by the Times is that of an alleged botched abortion in New York’s Upper Hudson Planned Parenthood clinic.
According to the report, Nakara Alston became desperate when she discovered she was eight weeks pregnant – at the same time she decided to end her relationship with her boyfriend. After scheduling an abortion at the Albany area Planned Parenthood clinic, she moved with her two daughters to a homeless shelter. There, she continued to bleed heavily and experience painful cramps. A second home pregnancy test delivered positive results, but, the Times noted, “the clinic staff assured her that they had seen the aborted fetus and there was nothing to worry about.”
Nevertheless, Alston went to an emergency room only to find: “The baby was still in her womb.”
This statement appears to be a rarity for the Times, known to be protective of the abortion industry and regularly referring to an unborn baby as a “fetus,” that is, until recently, since President Donald Trump’s executive order ending birthright citizenship for those in the country illegally.
As writer Dr. Ben Braddock observed:
The Times further revealed the tragedy that, “Twelve weeks after the failed abortion, Ms. Alston went into labor and delivered a baby who quickly died.”
Other allegations cited by the Times include those of a California woman who accused Planned Parenthood of faulty insertion of a birth control device in her arm that led to nerve damage, and that of a woman, four months pregnant, whose baby was stillborn in an emergency room after a Nebraska Planned Parenthood clinician fitted her with an intra-uterine device (IUD) – apparently without realizing she was already pregnant.
Still other findings at the Nebraska Planned Parenthood affiliate include failure by staff to upload sexually transmitted infection (STI) test results into patient charts – leaving them to draw the faulty conclusion their tests were negative when they received no feedback from the clinic.
A report of yet another atrocity:
In Omaha last year, sewage from a backed-up toilet seeped into the abortion recovery room for two days, according to interviews with staff members and photographs and text messages shared with The Times. Employees shoved exam table pads under the bathroom door to block the leak. Patients vomited from the stench.
Indeed, pro-life organizations have long warned that abortion clinics are dangerous for both babies and women.
Abby Johnson – a former Planned Parenthood director and now CEO and founder of And Then There Were None and ProLove Ministries, said in comments sent to Lumen-News:
Even though I left Planned Parenthood years ago, the same things are still happening inside their clinics across the country that I witnessed: using expired medications, high turnover, horrendous working conditions, unqualified staff, huge sums of money not being used for patient care, and disgusting conditions of the clinics. And Then There Were None has helped more than 700 former abortion workers leave their jobs and find healing, new work, and a group of people who know exactly what they went through. Many of these former clinic workers have almost identical negative experiences as those discussed in the New York Times story. These problems are rampant at Planned Parenthood clinics everywhere.
In 2016 – just three years after Philadelphia abortionist Kermit Gosnell was found guilty of murdering both babies born alive following botched abortions and one of his patients – Americans United for Life (AUL) released an investigative report titled “Unsafe: The Public Health Crisis in America’s Abortion Clinics Endangers Women.”
Then-AUL vice president of legal affairs Denise Burke called the report “the tip of the iceberg as too many state officials are turning a blind eye to this red-light district of medicine.”
Despite descriptions of horrific conditions and incidents, however, running through the Times story appears to be an attempt to invoke sympathy for the abortion business, presented as a “last resort to millions of the poorest Americans,” and one that could soon find itself defunded of taxpayer dollars.
In fiscal year 2022-2023, American taxpayers gave the abortion giant nearly $700 million, according to Planned Parenthood’s own annual report.
In that year as well, Planned Parenthood performed 392,715 abortions – the highest number recorded to date, with 18,560 more unborn babies losing their lives since the prior year.
“Planned Parenthood works relentlessly to fill gaps in a broken health care system,” CEO Alexis McGill Johnson defended her organization to the Times.
“Every day, Planned Parenthood health center staff go to work and navigate obstacles few providers have to face: personal threats, intimidation, misinformation and politically motivated barriers,” McGill Johnson said. “They do so because they believe in reproductive freedom. The critical care they provide is deeply undervalued and inequitably reimbursed across the country.”
Nevertheless, since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022, the Times noted that Planned Parenthood “has enjoyed a fund-raising boom, with $498 million in donations” in that year alone.
“But little of it goes to the state affiliates to provide health care at clinics,” the report revealed. “Instead, under the national bylaws, the majority of the money is spent on the legal and political fight to maintain abortion rights.”
In April 2024, Live Action News also provided an analysis of which services have decreased at Planned Parenthood since its last annual report:
Client numbers (down by 4% since last annual report; down 34% since 2006)
Number of donors (down 21% in a year)
Contraceptive services (includes counseling and care, down by 4% in a year; down 44% since 2009
Overall cancer screenings (breast exams and pap smears; slight overall decrease of 1%, pap smears down 13.5%)
Preventative care visits (down by 4%)
Adoption referrals (down by 5%, with 228 abortions for every one adoption referral)
Transgender services and other procedures (down by 30% from the 1500% increase a year prior)
Live Action News also noted that, within the past several years, Planned Parenthood has “bulked up its marketing of abortion — or, as they like to call it, their ‘patient navigation campaign of online search ads’ — to thwart women from seeking aid at multiple pro-life pregnancy help centers.”
The pro-life news outlet’s analysis of data from Planned Parenthood annual reports over the past decades also revealed that since 2000, over 7.1 million abortions have been committed by Planned Parenthood – up nearly 100% – with the abortion vendor receiving nearly $10.7 billion from taxpayers.
Abby Johnson said:
No matter what your position is on abortion, I would hope we could all agree that women don't deserve to be vomiting over the smell of leaked sewage when they are in an exam room at Planned Parenthood. Or that women shouldn't be given expired medication. Or that money designated for medical services is spent on political and legal campaigns. Or that non-qualified staff at Planned Parenthood should be handling services they have no business handling. Women deserve so much better than this. They deserve better than abortion.
The pro-life leader called for Planned Parenthood to be defunded “immediately.”
"They have received hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars every single year and apparently the best they can do is give terrible care to the people they serve and fail to uphold even the bare minimum standard of care,” she added. “It's no wonder turnover at Planned Parenthood is upwards of 50%. We can do better for women and defunding Planned Parenthood is a great place to start."