Two Planned Parenthood executives in the Illinois/Missouri region have announced their resignations within a week of each other. Both resignations come as a new CEO steps into the leadership of Midwestern affiliate Planned Parenthood Great Rivers — “an affiliate with locations in the cities of St. Louis, Springfield, and Rolla in Missouri, as well as in Fairview Heights, Illinois,” as Live Action News recently reported.
Colleen McNicholas
WASHINGTON, DC – JULY 12: Dr. Colleen McNicholas, the Chief Medical Officer of Planned Parenthood of the St. Louis Region and Southwest Missouri speaks during a hearing with the Senate Judiciary Committee in the Dirksen Senate Office Building on July 12, 2022 in Washington, DC… (Photo by Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)
Dr. Colleen McNicholas, chief medical officer of Planned Parenthood Great Rivers (formerly Planned Parenthood of the St. Louis Region and Southwest Missouri) announced her resignation from the abortion corporation this week. She had held the position since 2019.
“The decision to leave these health centers might be one of the hardest I have yet to encounter in my career,” McNicholas posted Monday on both X and Instagram. “Today, I’m leaning on words I share with patients all the time. … Decisions can be hard and sad and right all at the same time.” To speak these words to a woman seeking to kill her own child through abortion is misleading; it is never “right” to directly and intentionally kill an innocent human being. And according to pro-abortion activists, abortion is largely not a “hard” or “sad” decision — instead, it is now heralded as “freedom” and “democracy.”
Outside of her work at Planned Parenthood aborting babies, McNicholas did deliver children. But in 2013, one of those deliveries led to a lawsuit. Christine F., one of McNicholas’ patients, was struggling to deliver her son Hudson. After four hours, McNicholas made two unsuccessful attempts to do a vacuum-assisted vaginal delivery. After allowing Christine to push again, McNicholas finally brought her for an emergency C-section. During the transfer, Christine developed a fever and upon delivery, she became limp, had no pulse, and was not breathing or responsive. It was 23 minutes before her heart started again, leaving her with a severe brain injury. Christine filed a lawsuit and the case was settled.
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The ‘most dangerous’ abortion business in the U.S.?
Under McNicholas, the Reproductive Health Services Planned Parenthood of the St. Louis Region (RHS) facility built a reputation as one of the most dangerous abortion businesses in the U.S. It had been operating without a license in 2019 when it had to call an ambulance for the 75th (known) time in just 10 years to transfer an abortion patient to a hospital due to an abortion-related injury.
Though McNicholas claimed the facility didn’t have a license because “state officials abuse their power,” the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services had actually decided not to renew RHS’ license due to its significant number of health and safety violations. A Statement of Deficiencies can be read here; it includes a record of at least 30 deficient practices, including failure to ensure an abortion was complete and failure to follow up with a patient. 911 records from the facility indicate that multiple women suffered hemorrhaging during their abortions at RHS, along with incidences of fainting, seizures, and a stroke.
In addition, a Senate investigation found numerous instances of women having to return to RHS (some as many as five times) for a single abortion procedure to be properly completed. The staff had also instructed women not to call 911 if they experienced abortion-related complications once they were at home.
Promoted after significant failures
Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey filed a lawsuit against Planned Parenthood Great Plains in 2024 over the trafficking of minors out of state for abortions without parental consent, in violation of state laws. (Note that Planned Parenthood has made changes to its affiliates, affiliate names, and affiliate member clinics frequently over the past several years.) The lawsuit discussed McNicholas specifically, noting that after health inspectors found moldy abortion equipment and a substance deemed “most likely bodily fluid” in 2018 at the facility in Columbia, Missouri, clinic staff admitted that they knew about the mold “a couple of months previously.” They also claimed that McNicholas had “continued to use the machine on patients after they identified the issue.”
McNicholas knowingly allowed and/or carried out about 40 abortions on women using mold-infested equipment before state inspectors caught it. This, and her inability to secure hospital privileges, cost the facility its license.
In addition, in 2018, McNicholas admitted under oath that she failed to comply with the requirement that abortion facilities report complications, making it impossible to know just how many women were harmed by her facility’s health code violations and moldy machines. She claimed that she began complying with the abortion complication reporting law in 2017, however, in 2018 she once again failed to do so.
While McNicholas ran the Columbia facility, abortionist David Eisenberg (also a Washington University physician) was the medical director at Planned Parenthood in St. Louis. Eisenberg was caught practicing questionable hand hygiene at the facility and downplayed the seriousness of the health code violations. Eisenberg said that abortionists at the facility did not report complications because, according to the lawsuit, “they did not expect the state to enforce the law.” Oddly, this sounds as if they assumed a state official would abuse his or her power in favor of Planned Parenthood — not against, as McNicholas implied.
Despite all of these failures, McNicholas received a promotion. It states, “Despite this violation, Colleen McNicholas was hired just 9 months later to be the ‘Chief Medical Officer’ of Planned Parenthood of the St. Louis Region and Southwest Missouri.” As chief medical officer, she would oversee all clinical care provided at Planned Parenthood locations in that area.
Additional law violations involving patients
There are also known occasions in which McNicholas sedated an abortion patient, left the room, and instructed a resident to carry out the abortion — a violation of state law. In one such case, the woman suffered an incomplete abortion and had to return to receive a second abortion.
Also under McNicholas, Planned Parenthood’s Fairview Heights facility in Illinois was sued by a patient in 2024 who accused staff of subjecting her to “masculinizing hormone treatment” without seeking psychological evaluations to get a proper diagnosis of gender dysphoria. She alleged that no tests or evaluations were performed to confirm the diagnosis and determine treatment.
“As a result of the defendant’s negligence, plaintiff suffered a substantial injury due to the negligent treatment she received,” the complaint stated. The patient said she suffered “great pain and anguish, has incurred substantial medical expenses, and has experienced a substantial loss of her normal life.”
She sought $50,000 in damages and the case was settled out of court.
McNicholas’ legacy
McNicholas’ tenure as chief medical officer includes the opening of the aforementioned Fairview Heights facility, a massive, 18,000-square-foot abortion complex just across the border from Missouri (where abortions are currently paused) in Illinois (where abortion is legal). Planned Parenthood Great Rivers also introduced a mobile clinic in 2022 to make it easier to abort the babies of women who live in pro-life states like Missouri by cruising the borders, using healthcare facilities, churches, and other locations as stopping points. McNicholas was also at the helm when Planned Parenthood Great Rivers sent an abortion bus to the Democratic National Convention in 2024 to give away free abortions and vasectomies.
McNicholas leaves her position with Planned Parenthood just months after Missouri voters narrowly passed Amendment 3, widely expanding abortion again in the once pro-life state. In 2022, following the U.S. Supreme Court’s Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision overturning Roe v. Wade, Missouri began protecting most preborn children from abortion. Amendment 3 will undo the state’s pro-life, post-Roe ‘trigger law’, though it has not yet been effective due to additional state laws on the books surrounding abortion. At this time, abortions have not yet resumed in Missouri.
According to Linkedin, McNicholas co-founded the Raven Lab for Reproductive Liberation, a pro-abortion organization, with fellow abortionist Jennifer Villavicencio in 2024. NPR noted that “McNicholas and fellow Raven Lab cofounder Jenni Villavicencio last summer authored a brief criticizing limits on abortion based on viability, a fetus’ ability to survive outside the womb. That’s generally around 24 weeks gestation.”
NPR also stated that the Lab’s goal is to “develop public campaigns using messaging informed by new opinion polling, research findings, and our extensive experience communicating with patients, partners, and collaborators.” Multiple studies and polls put forward by abortion industry insiders and their allies in the press already present skewed and deceptive findings.
According to Raven Lab’s website, “We envision an American abortion landscape rooted in radical justice and lived expertise, where abortion is unrestricted, equitable, and accessible throughout pregnancy” (emphases added). Raven Lab’s goal is to “make compromise unthinkable as a long-term approach” and to “build sustainable expansive policy solutions that leave nobody behind” — except for the hundreds of thousands of broken bodies of innocent children.
Despite co-founding the org, McNicholas’ Linkedin profile shows that she left Raven Lab this month as well.
Jennifer Welch
Screenshot: PBS
But McNicholas is not the only higher-ranking leader to resign from Planned Parenthood recently. Planned Parenthood Illinois CEO Jennifer Welch announced last week that she is resigning after seven years on the job. After the overturn of Roe, Welch promoted Illinois as an “oasis” for abortion. According to USA Today, Welch is also stepping down as head of political action committee Planned Parenthood Illinois Action. “Welch took over as president in April 2017, shepherding the group through the first Trump administration, the COVID-19 pandemic and the overturning of Roe v. Wade by the U.S. Supreme Court in 2022,” the news outlet stated. “Through the PAC, Welch also was credited in spearheading legislation that codified abortion protections in Illinois law in light of the Dobbs decision.”
Serious injuries at multiple Planned Parenthood locations
Under Welch’s watch, women were injured. In 2022, the Elizabeth Cohn Morris Health Center Planned Parenthood in Chicago, with a history of injuring women, sent another woman to the hospital — this time for a perforated uterus during a surgical abortion. This was reportedly the 24th known injury to take place at this facility in less than six years. Then, in 2023, two women were sent to the emergency room within five days after undergoing abortions at the very same Elizabeth Cohn Morris Planned Parenthood on North La Salle Drive in Chicago. Both women began hemorrhaging severely after their abortions.
In October 2024, a Planned Parenthood in Flossmoor, Illinois, on the outskirts of Chicago, called 911 for a patient who was “bleeding pretty heavily,” according to the staffer who called 911. Numerous women have been injured at this facility, including two women in less than two weeks in 2023. One of the facility’s escorts was also charged with battery after an unprovoked attack on a pro-life sidewalk counselor in 2023.
A deadly partnership
Also under Welch’s leadership, Planned Parenthood of Illinois partnered with Hey Jane, an online abortion pill business, with the goal of further expanding abortion access in the state. Hey Jane is now able to access Illinois Medicaid, and Planned Parenthood Illinois plans to refer clients to Hey Jane for the abortion pill, while Hey Jane refers women to Planned Parenthood for surgical abortions.
“This partnership means easier access to the abortion care people need and deserve,” said Welch. But it also puts women at greater risk.
The “no-test” abortion pill protocol used by companies like Hey Jane is extremely risky for women. Without an ultrasound or any blood tests performed before the abortion, there is no way to confirm the preborn child’s gestational age or rule out an ectopic pregnancy or any other contraindications that may increase the mother’s risk of complications.
Though it is possible that Hey Jane’s partnership with Planned Parenthood could mean women are able to get blood tests and ultrasounds performed first, there is no indication from either company that this will be the case — and there is no indication that it certainly won’t be. The Chicago Sun-Times mentioned the arrangement will let Planned Parenthood free up space for more surgical abortion clients.
It is unclear what positions and roles McNicholas and Welch will take on after they officially vacate their positions at Planned Parenthood.
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