Dr. Leana Wen was forced out as Planned Parenthood leader this week, as a result of their board determining that Dr. Wen’s vision of Planned Parenthood as a comprehensive healthcare provider risked compromising their commitment to abortion. Catherine Glenn Foster, President & CEO of Americans United for Life, issued this statement:

“Planned Parenthood has long claimed that healthcare encompasses the intentional killing of unwanted human persons, and Dr. Leana Wen—despite her brief eight-month tenure—has consistently traded on her training as a physician to perpetuate Planned Parenthood’s falsehood that ‘abortion is healthcare’. The pro-life movement is continuing to rack up legal victories at the state and federal levels, and we have every intention of building on those victories until we reach a post-Roe v. Wade era, and we will do that no matter who is leading America’s deadliest non-profit.”

And I offered the following thoughts on Dr. Wen’s departure, which still strikes me as a strange strategic decision in advance of an election year:

“What Planned Parenthood’s board leadership has done,” stated Tom Shakely, Chief Engagement Officer at Americans United for Life, “is simply to confirm that Planned Parenthood is solely and ideologically committed to abortion—not comprehensive care, not patient outcomes, and certainly not authentic medicine. Planned Parenthood is a single-issue organization whose most desired outcome is the ending of the lives of their most vulnerable patients—developing members of the human family.”

“We earnestly hope that Leana Wen herself is led to a conversion of heart on the fundamental human right to life. She would be a powerful witness for the capacity of all persons to recognize the truth of a difficult issue, and serve as advocates and protectors of vulnerable human persons.”