A recent New York Times article, “Botched Care and Tired Staff: Planned Parenthood in Crisis,” showcases the idea that though Planned Parenthood has done harm to patients (that goes beyond killing their preborn children), none of the problems occurring at Planned Parenthood facilities are fully Planned Parenthood’s fault. It isn’t the abortion giant that’s to blame, in the Times’ portrayal; it’s everyone else.
According to the Times, Planned Parenthood is facing significant employee turnover, financial struggles, low patient numbers, and patient lawsuits — creating a “crisis.” Though the sense readers receive from the Times is that the blame lies with a supposed lack of funding for the abortion corporation, it seems the real cause of its troubles has been the “health care” organization’s heavy focus on abortion.
Here are six key facts about the NYT exposé:
1. What the Times reported isn’t new information.
Nothing in the article from the Times is new information — it’s just that the mainstream media has, for some reason, chosen to overlook Planned Parenthood’s infractions until now. Planned Parenthood has been under fire for many years for poor patient care, discrimination against employees, and declining services.
As Live Action News has reported, the corporation has been accused of protecting child sexual abusers, engaging in Medicaid fraud, and financially profiting from the body parts of the babies it aborts. But instead of reporting this information, the media has either frequently chosen to downplay it or attempted to discredit the whistleblowers.
2. Most funding Planned Parenthood gets (including $700M yearly from taxpayers) goes to the “legal and political fight” for abortion.
The Times reportedly reviewed “clinic documents and legal filings, as well as interviews with more than 50 current and former Planned Parenthood executives, consultants and medical staff members,” and “found that some clinics are so short of cash that care has suffered. Many operate with aging equipment and poorly trained staff, as turnover has increased because of rock-bottom salaries….”
The Times admits that after Roe v. Wade was overturned by the Supreme Court in 2022, Planned Parenthood “enjoyed a fund-raising boom, with $498 million in donations that year” alone. Billionaire MacKenzie Scott (ex-wife of Jeff Bezos) gave the abortion corporation $275 million to use at the national office and 21 affiliates. And though, “[o]ver the last five years, the national office has distributed more than $899 million to affiliates to help them deliver care,” according to the Times, “none of it went directly to medical services.”
“Instead,” said the Times, “under the national bylaws, the majority of the money is spent on the legal and political fight to maintain abortion rights.”
The mission of Planned Parenthood Federation of America is not to provide quality health care but to “provide leadership, advocacy and education in the field of reproductive health care.” In other words, the central work of Planned Parenthood is to advocate for legalized abortion, be a leader in the pro-abortion movement, and educate (though with false information) on so-called “reproductive health care,” ie: abortion.
“We’re begging for supplies, and we get denied constantly because they just can’t afford it,” said Ashley Schmidt, a former training and development specialist in Nebraska. But while Schmidt believes Planned Parenthood can’t afford basic supplies, it built a “state-of-the-art facility” in pro-abortion Illinois, in a university town just a few hours from the borders of several states that have pro-life laws in effect.
The Times notes, “Much of the national funding to affiliates went to legal support, public campaigns to expand abortion access and subsidies for patient navigators who help patients access abortions… [L]eaders say they have repeatedly prioritized the fight for abortion rights over clinics because the political fight was fundamental to the organization’s ability to operate.”
While the Times points out that Planned Parenthood facilities “are primarily funded by Medicaid payments for non-abortion procedures,” it doesn’t state that the federal government (taxpayers) gives nearly $700 million to Planned Parenthood annually.
As patient numbers decline and federal funding and donations increase, Planned Parenthood is still struggling to stay afloat, even in pro-abortion states. Planned Parenthood of Northern New England, one of the most abortion-friendly areas of the nation, anticipates an $8 million deficit over the next three years, said the Times. In Northern California, the prenatal care program that served up to 250 low-income women each month was shut down, despite a $1.3 million contract for it to operate from Contra Costa County.
It should be noted, however, that prenatal care is not one of Planned Parenthood’s common offerings — as Live Action learned in an undercover investigation:
3. Planned Parenthood’s patient numbers have been dropping for over a decade.
“Patient counts have shrunk from a high of five million and 900 clinics in the 1990s to 2.1 million patients and 600 clinics today” — facts reported by Live Action News in December 2024.
Surprisingly, the New York Times partly blames former President Barack Obama’s Affordable Care Act for the patient decline, because it “expanded health insurance options for low income women and drove many poor women away from Planned Parenthood clinics to other health care providers.”
It’s as if the Times feels that providing more health care options for women is a negative, because it means women were given the choice of a provider other than Planned Parenthood. Blaming Obama is also an admission that when given the choice, many women will choose other providers over Planned Parenthood — which has a track record of botched abortions, birth control failures, dirty exam rooms, unsanitary equipment, and reports of patients feeling that they were on the Planned Parenthood “conveyer belt” or were “herded like cattle” through the abortion process.
Grace Larson, a former Planned Parenthood nurse who was fired while trying to start a union, said that employees sometimes administered expired pain medication or the wrong medications as they shuffled patients in and out of the facility. She said many patients had been taken to the wrong room and prepped for the wrong procedure.
“We would catch it when a patient would say, ‘Why am I in a room with an ultrasound machine and a sedation nurse for a Pap smear?’ or when a nurse would come in and be like, ‘Wrong room, wrong patient,’” Larson explained to the Times.
The Times also reported that in Omaha, Nebraska, in 2024, a Planned Parenthood facility had sewage from a clogged toilet seeping into the abortion recovery room for two days, causing patients to vomit from the smell.
Other former employees told the Times that Planned Parenthood applies constant pressure to staff to double the number of patients — and to spend only ten minutes with each patient — other than those there for the money-maker service: abortion. Planned Parenthood has been caught in the past using abortion quotas to push facilities to kill more babies to help boost profits.
This information was a matter of public record eight years ago when Live Action founder and president Lila Rose interviewed former Planned Parenthood employees — yet the Times is only now reporting this information:
4. The NYT mentions health-related patient lawsuits… but doesn’t mention ones related to child sex abuse.
The heavy focus on abortion in the political realm is apparently leaving Planned Parenthood clients with poor care.
The Times mentions Nakara Alston, who had an abortion at Planned Parenthood in Albany, New York, at eight weeks pregnant. Several weeks later she was still heavily bleeding and dealing with painful cramping. Though the abortion facility assured her that they had completed the abortion, a trip to a hospital emergency room revealed she was still pregnant. At 20 weeks, she gave birth to a baby who died shortly after. Alston filed a malpractice suit against Upper Hudson Planned Parenthood — one of several the facility is facing.
Countless other lawsuits have been filed against Planned Parenthood affiliates. As the Times reports, in California last year, a case was settled involving a woman who said Planned Parenthood caused nerve damage when it didn’t properly insert her IUD. A Nebraska facility was sued when staff implanted an IUD into an already pregnant woman, causing the baby to be stillborn.
Lawsuits have also been filed regarding child sex abuse cases involving abusive men who took their young victims to Planned Parenthood for abortions in order to cover up their crimes.
5. Abortions skyrocketed over the past decade at Planned Parenthood, while most other services plummeted.
As previously reported by Live Action News, Planned Parenthood alone holds 40% of the abortion market share in the United States and has reported a 29% increase in abortions over the past decade. And it reports that its legitimate healthcare services have been in decline.
Also over the past decade, while patients decreased by 30%, prenatal care decreased by 68%, contraceptive services decreased nearly 40%, cancer screenings decreased 59%, breast care (not including mammograms, which it does not offer) declined nearly 62%, Pap tests dropped nearly 60%, and adoption referrals declined nearly 22%.
Is it possible that the women leaving Planned Parenthood under the Affordable Care Act have done so because Planned Parenthood has failed to provide the actual “care” it promises, while remaining steadfast to its mission to protect legal abortion?
6. Planned Parenthood reportedly puts abortion ‘mission’ over staff morale.
The New York Times also makes the claim that Planned Parenthood employee salaries are “rock-bottom,” causing high turnover and diminishing care. And yet, Planned Parenthood CEOs are some of the highest-paid executives in the non-profit sector. A 2023 report found that “the average Planned Parenthood affiliate CEO is in the 98th percentile of US wage earners, making $317,564 annually.” The money Planned Parenthood receives seems to be lining the pockets of CEOs and others willing to promote abortion.
Staffers aren’t just paid poorly, but treated poorly, says the Times. Staff workers complain of a “chaotic” and “toxic” work environment, no overtime pay, no breaks, being pushed out of the job if they request leave, and — as reported by Live Action News — racism and discrimination.
According to the Times, Planned Parenthood employee turnover “is hovering at around 50 percent a year in many parts of the country, and clinic workers complained that they were learning from inexperienced peers.” Many said they were never properly trained for patient intake or blood draws, along with other tasks.
And what happens when the staff speaks up? The Times reports, “Dozens of current and former employees also said that their complaints were met with reminders that they were in a ‘mission moment,’ meaning a time of crisis for reproductive rights so urgent that it overshadowed their concerns.”
Its focus and mission have always been clear — abortion comes first.
