Former Planned Parenthood managers explain Planned Parenthood’s policy on ultrasounds

Recently, Live Action released an undercover video of recorded phone calls and visits to Planned Parenthood facilities. Callers contacted Planned Parenthood facilities posing as pregnant women who wanted ultrasounds. The callers made it clear that they did not want abortions, but wanted the ultrasound to check if the baby was healthy and developing normally. After all, Planned Parenthood claims to be all about women’s health and a provider of many services other than abortion.  However, nearly all of the Planned Parenthood facilities turned the women away.

In fact, 65 of the 68 Planned Parenthood locations contacted told the women that they only provided ultrasounds on abortion patients. The facilities even had a policy that ultrasounds were only used to date the pregnancy before abortion procedures. They had no interest in helping pregnant women who wanted to have their babies. The investigation revealed that except in very rare cases, Planned Parenthood only does ultrasounds after the woman has agreed to have an abortion.

Ultrasounds for Killing, Not Care, at Planned Parenthood

Former Planned Parenthood manager Sue Thayer said in an interview that not only would Planned Parenthood refuse to do ultrasounds on pregnant women who wanted their babies, but they would make sure that women coming in for abortions did not see their baby on the ultrasound screen. Thayer recalls what happened when a brand-new ultrasound machine was delivered to her clinic:

If Planned Parenthood is really about choice they would show women the ultrasound. And they don’t. […] When we got our new little 4D, state-of-the-art ultrasound machine in Storm Lake, the GE guy pulls up in his truck to deliver it. […] He’s got this fancy little machine that probably cost, I don’t know, $100,000 probably. […] He rolls it in, and he’s all excited about it because it’s really state-of-the-art, hot off the factory, and he wants to show me how it works. So I go back and he’s showing me all these bells and whistles and all these things on this little machine, and he gets to the button that says ‘print’. And he looked up at me for the first time and he said, ‘I guess for what you’re using this machine for, you’ll never print a picture.’ And I said, ‘No. Planned Parenthood will never print a picture.’ And of course, not only would they never print a picture, but they turn the monitor away so the mom can’t see it.

Planned Parenthood would never print a picture to give to the mother because this might dissuade her from going through with her abortion. Women were never allowed to see the babies that Planned Parenthood was about to kill.

Ramona Trevino, another former Planned Parenthood manager, explains why Planned Parenthood’s refusal to do ultrasounds for any reason other than abortion endangers their patients. She told Live Action:

Another issue that we ran into quite often, was when women would come in who had a legitimate problem, for example polycystic ovary syndrome, or maybe fibroids, or something like that, who we could not diagnose because there were no ultrasound technicians or any type of ultrasound other than the ultrasound that is available at the abortion facilities.

Planned Parenthood, which bills itself as a women’s health care provider and promotes the idea that their services are essential for women, fails to diagnose and treat women with health conditions because of their policy on ultrasounds. Even when a woman has a serious health problem, Planned Parenthood does not perform an ultrasound. They are reserved only for abortions.

If a woman with polycystic ovaries or fibroids went to a legitimate medical clinic, an ultrasound would be standard medical practice. The fact that women with these problems were not treated or examined (when they easily could be)  shows that what Planned Parenthood is really about is abortion.

See the testimonies of Sue Thayer and Ramona Trevino here:

Planned Parenthood Managers: Ultrasounds for Abortions, Not Health Care