Analysis

Cover-ups, discrimination, fraud, and more: Planned Parenthood’s abuses are piling up

By Carole Novielli | November 25, 2024 , 04:54pm

Proof of abuses, scandals, fraud, racism, pregnancy discrimination, privacy breaches, as well as Medicaid fraud and even accusations of retaliation have piled up against the nation’s number one abortion business, Planned Parenthood. Despite these claims, the U.S. government has continued to funnel millions in taxpayer dollars to the organization.

Since 2000, the abortion corporation has committed over 7.1 million abortions while receiving nearly $10.7 billion from taxpayers.

Planned Parenthood, which has been tethered to eugenics since it founding, now commits 40% of all abortions in the U.S.

Planned Parenthood’s long list of infractions

Planned Parenthood’s abuses include the following:

Planned Parenthood was founded as a eugenics-based organization.
Planned Parenthood misleads women with false and deceptive marketing.
Planned Parenthood has been cited for overbilling abuses and Medicaid fraud, and for violating patient privacy, see more below.
Planned Parenthood lies about the services it provides, including prenatal care.
Planned Parenthood does not provide mammograms, despite claiming that it did.
Planned Parenthood misinforms women about the development of their preborn babies.
Planned Parenthood has a poor standard of care for its clients, with former managers accusing them of “treating women like cattle” and using ultrasounds only for abortions.
Planned Parenthood fails to report child sexual abuse (a violation that alone should result in the organization losing millions of taxpayer dollars granted to it under the federal Title X Family Planning Program).
Planned Parenthood’s sex “education” for teens promotes BDSM and other disturbing sexual practices.
Planned Parenthood PACs and their appointed overseers have been cited by the Federal Election Commission (FEC) for multiple campaign donation violations.
Planned Parenthood staffers have accused the organization of discrimination, and former staffers have been tied to sexual abuse.

Accusations of discrimination and racism

Dr. Laverne Tolbert, who served on the board of Planned Parenthood NYC between 1975 and 1980, later told Newsmax TV, “There is no way to justify continuing to fund Planned Parenthood. Its roots are racist!” What Dr.Tolbert discovered would be repeated by many Planned Parenthood staffers who learned it wasn’t just PP’s roots that were racist.

2024: According to First Alert 4, Teona McGhaw filed a lawsuit against Advocates of Planned Parenthood of the St. Louis Region & Southwest Missouri alleging that she was terminated from her position because she is Black; Planned Parenthood disputed that claim, saying it terminated her because she was also serving as president of the National Women’s Political Caucus and the overlapping roles were a conflict of interest.

2023: Samuel Ricardo Mitchell Jr., a Black ordained Pastor, described by Planned Parenthood of Greater New York (PPGNY) as the affiliate’s Chief Operating Officer. Mitchell claimed comments made by PPGNY leadership were “stained with racist overtones.” He alleges he was passed over for promotion in favor of a white staffer and discriminated against for his religion.

2023: The Philadelphia Inquirer reported that at least two dozen racial discrimination lawsuits had been filed against various Planned Parenthood affiliates, with staffers telling the outlet that racism is an inherent part of the company’s culture. As Live Action News previously documented, one of the lawsuits alleged a hostile work environment where Black employees were treated “with disdain.” Another woman, a Black nurse practitioner, said her manager threw a patient’s urine sample at her desk, and claims she was laid off out of retaliation.

2022: Concerns of antisemitism at Planned Parenthood were alleged in a discrimination lawsuit filed by Ilana Gamza-Machado de Souza, who is Jewish, and formerly worked as Planned Parenthood’s Senior Brand Marketing Director in the Communications & Culture Department.

2021: A discrimination lawsuit was filed by former Planned Parenthood employee Nicole Moore, whose complaint laid out a damning case, alleging Planned Parenthood “tokenized” staff of color and often retaliated against them when they spoke up. The 51-page lawsuit is replete with allegations of tokenism, mistreatment, and retaliation; it also alleges that Planned Parenthood “has not taken a single step to remedy the race discrimination which continues to harm its staff of color.”

“While Planned Parenthood has publicly boasted its commitment to racial equality, the organization – whose tagline is ‘Care. No matter what’ – has blatantly ignored reports by dozens of its Black employees of systemic unequal hiring and promotion, more work for lower pay, overt hostility, and trafficking in stereotypes by leadership,” Moore’s legal claim reads. “Instead of addressing the issues, Planned Parenthood has doubled down by punishing employees of color who dare to speak up, pretextually disciplining them and creating working conditions so intolerable that they are effectively forced to leave.”

Renee Bracey Sherman, a Black reproductive justice activist and former Planned Parenthood consultant who is mentioned in the suit, said she read the complaint and was not surprised by it.

“I’ve experienced and been told stories similar to those outlined in the complaint. It’s hardly my first experience and I doubt it will be my last,” she told The Daily Beast. “I’m so tired of being quiet about racism in [the reproductive rights movement] for the sake of saving Roe. We lost Roe. Now we need to deal with the white supremacy and exploitation underlying our movement.”

Another Black abortion advocate told The Daily Beast, “They’ve been such a mess for so long, who can keep up? I’m glad she is suing.”

2020: In July 2020, hundreds of past and current Planned Parenthood of Greater New York (PPGNY) employees published an open letter which alleged the abortion organization was “founded by a racist, white woman” and had a “present steeped in white supremacy.” Additional employees at other affiliates told BuzzFeed News they had witnessed “open racism,” endured “segregated” offices, and experienced overall unequal treatment of Black and minority employees at multiple Planned Parenthood centers across the country.

Planned Parenthood’s present-day “systemic racism” was later acknowledged by multiple affiliates. Nineteen separate Planned Parenthood affiliates with operations in 33 states issued statements admitting to racism. An internal audit also confirmed that Planned Parenthood Federation of America has a racism problem.

2021: Chris Charbonneau, CEO of a Seattle-based Planned Parenthood affiliate with nearly 40 years at the corporation, was fired after being accused of racism.

2016: Asia Blunt, a Black woman with a disability, filed a discrimination lawsuit claiming Planned Parenthood of Kansas and Mid-Missouri fired her because of her race. Blunt claimed she “witnessed numerous instances of discriminatory and disparate treatment toward other African American employees, including in hiring, discipline, and termination.”

2005: Former Planned Parenthood Los Angeles (PPLA) staffer Andrew Jones filed a lawsuit which alleged that PPLA regularly allowed overt racism and sexism to infect its facilities, did nothing when one of its employees was called the N-word, and consistently portrayed Black males as being irresponsible. Sworn affidavits from female PPLA staff alleged, “there was a sense that any employee who was not a white female was going to be carefully watched.” Additional “high level PPLA employees … were fired for whistle-blowing or complaining of racism.”

Planned Parenthood LA former employees claimed racism lawsuit filed

2004: Life News reported that a group of Black and Hispanic employees filed a federal lawsuit alleging that they were treated in a racist manner by officials at a Planned Parenthood in southern California. One complaint from a Black employee accused a PPLA official of referring to him with a racial slur.

1999: Texas Business Today detailed a lawsuit filed by Lamarilyn Fadeyi, an African American employee who was fired by Planned Parenthood in Lubbock. Fadeyi alleged she had been “unlawfully discriminated against during her tenure with Planned Parenthood.” The article describes the allegations made by Fadeyi against Planned Parenthood, “including a claim that the office director gave her and another African American worker an ‘application’ to join the Ku Klux Klan (which was supposed to be a joke).”

Failure to report child sexual abuse

Live Action investigations have repeatedly documented Planned Parenthood’s willingness to aid sex traffickers, willingness to commit sex-selective abortions, and much more. All of these should disqualify Planned Parenthood from receiving federal funding.

Live Action and Live Action News have documented multiple criminal cases in which sexually abused teens were taken to abortion businesses and Planned Parenthood facilities — sometimes out of state — to cover the crime of rape. In addition, Live Action News has also documented individual predatory sexual abuse and harassment allegations among staffers associated with the abortion industry.

Live Action’s Aiding Abusers investigative report and docuseries, which includes actual criminal cases and testimony from the attorney of two victims, exposed how Planned Parenthood covers up child sexual abuse. In addition, Live Action undercover investigative videos documented Planned Parenthood employees at 15 different facilities showing a willingness to cover up child sexual abuse and child sex trafficking.

An interview between Live Action president Lila Rose and a former Planned Parenthood manager revealed that instead of helping employees to identify and report potential abuse, the corporation’s training sessions instructed staff on how to identify undercover journalists and whether they were being recorded.

Staffer accusations of mistreatment

Planned Parenthood employees have gone public to expose long-held secrets and inner workings of the organization, including failure to pay employees a decent wage, shoddy treatment, discriminating against pregnant employees, and prioritizing profits over care. They also revealed that Planned Parenthood has abortion goals. Staffers alleged the organization is “more concerned” with power and money than anything else and exposed the corporation’s ‘perpetually toxic’ culture.

In addition, Live Action News previously documented accusations of the corporation’s discrimination against its own staffers for:

Client allegations of shoddy care

Lawsuits reveal that the quality of care provided is less than stellar. A lawsuit filed against Planned Parenthood of Southern New England, Inc. (PPSNE), a recipient of Title X funds, alleged a PPSNE midwife misdiagnosed a pregnancy that resulted in the death of a 22-week-old baby boy after telling the pregnant woman that she had miscarried at six weeks.

Another alleges PPSNE failed to notice a client was 14 weeks pregnant before inserting an IUD. A third separate lawsuit alleges that a PPSNE abortionist left a woman permanently injured.

A separate lawsuit filed against Planned Parenthood Hudson Peconic (PPHP) accused the organization of miscalculating a woman’s pregnancy so egregiously that she painfully delivered a “fully formed” 30 to 36-week baby boy into a toilet after Planned Parenthood’s abortionist allegedly told the woman she was just six (6) weeks along, then prescribed her abortion pills.

Another lawsuit alleged that Planned Parenthood botched a client’s abortion and abandoned her afterwards, leaving her with weeks of pain and blood loss — and then, a premature delivery of her baby, who survived for an hour after birth though her mother was told she was stillborn.

Multiple breaches of client privacy

Live Action News previously documented multiple violations of privacy (2016, 2017, and older) under the federal HIPAA law taking place at Planned Parenthood (PP), including massive privacy breaches and abuses due to PP’s negligence, exposing thousands of PP patients.

Earlier this year, Planned Parenthood Los Angeles (PPLA) reached a “$6 million settlement to resolve all claims related to a 2021 data breach that exposed the personal information of more than 409,437 patients,” reported the HIPAA Journal.

An April 2024 review of the Office for Civil Rights (OCR) notification portal archive page reveals multiple privacy breaches against Planned Parenthood, including “hacking incidents,” “Unauthorized Access/Disclosures,” as well as an “Improper Disposal” of private client information.

In total, these larger breaches affected over half a million Planned Parenthood clients, yet CFA’s “nonpartisan” complaints do not appear to target Planned Parenthood.

Office of Civil Rights HIPPA violations in archive against Planned Parenthood

Planned Parenthood has been careless with patient data, failing to protect the confidentiality of medical records and identifiable personal information:

Planned Parenthood of Montana was listed by OCR as having an Hacking/IT incident affecting 18,003 clients (2024).
Planned Parenthood Bedford Heights was ordered to pay thousands by the Ohio Department of Health (ODH) for dumping private patient information in the trash, along with the remains of aborted children (2022).
Planned Parenthood Los Angeles (PPLA) claimed a “hacking incident” affected 409,759 clients (2021). Planned Parenthood of Metropolitan Washington, D.C. revealed a “hacking incident” affected 500 Planned Parenthood clients (2021).
Planned Parenthood Great Plains posted a notice regarding a security breach at Blackbaud, a data management software and cloud computing software vendor of Planned Parenthood Federation of America and several affiliates, which “compromised some donor data” for multiple Planned Parenthood affiliates across the nation. Planned Parenthood of Northern New England, a Title X recipient, was among the affiliates affected by the 2020 Blackbaud breach, which exposed patient data (2020).
OCR noted a “Hacking/IT” incident at Planned Parenthood Metro Washington involving 142,982 clients. (2020)
Planned Parenthood of the Heartland reported a privacy breach of 515 patients at its Bettendorf center in Iowa (2018).
Planned Parenthood of Greater Washington and North Idaho (PPGWNI) notified patients about a data security “error” involving 10,700 patients (2016).
Planned Parenthood of the Heartland closed its facility in Dubuque, Iowa, and left thousands of private medical records inside the building for months while the building was being shown and eventually sold. Planned Parenthood of the Heartland reported the breach, affecting 2,506 individuals, in July of 2016.
Planned Parenthood Southwest Ohio Region at PP Elizabeth Campbell Center in Cincinnati left a storage location that housed private prescription medical logs unlocked, which was later placed in the trash dumpster then emptied by the trash collector (2014). A 2015 OCR report shows an impact of 5,000 clients.
Planned Parenthood in Trexlertown, Pennsylvania, violated the Federal Standards for Privacy Identifiable Health Information after sending a bill for a patient to the wrong person, according to a complaint received by Office of Civil Rights (OCR) in 2014.

Live Action News has documented more here.

Multiple allegations of Medicaid fraud

Former Planned Parenthood staffers have claimed that the taxpayer-funded agency has a history of over-billing or marking up the cost of birth control drugs.

In 2015, former Planned Parenthood manager Sue Thayer testified before a Congressional committee accusing Planned Parenthood of filing “[…] false claims totaling about $28 million with Iowa’s Medicaid program for (1) illegally dispensing ‘medically unnecessary’ quantities of oral contraceptive pills and birth control patches to C-Mail Medicaid patients and doing so without a prescription; (2) fraudulently billing the Iowa Medicaid program for abortion-related services; and (3) coercing ‘donations’ from Medicaid patients.”

The Office of Inspector General (OIG) website highlights several instances:

PP Great Plains and Comprehensive Health of Planned Parenthood Great Plains paid $18,808.92 for allegedly violating the Civil Monetary Penalties Law.
PP Health Systems, Inc. in North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia, and West Virginia, agreed to pay $1,572,752.80 for potentially violating the Civil Monetary Penalties Law.
PP Gulf Coast in Houston paid $4.3 million to resolve civil claims that it billed for items and services related to birth control counseling, STD testing, and contraceptives when they were not medically necessary or were not provided.
Separately, PP Gulf Coast agreed to pay $1.4 million in a Texas Medicaid billing fraud case.
PP of North Texas: Texas Health and Human Services Commission claimed Medicaid reimbursement of at least $129,000 for family planning services provided by PP of North Texas that did not comply with Federal and State Medicaid requirements.

Live Action News previously detailed additional violations — including several identified by the Charlotte Lozier Institute and Alliance Defending Freedom — totaling at least $8.5 million in waste, abuse, and potential fraud in the following states:

California (two audits of two affiliates): $5,213,645.92 30
Connecticut: $18,791
Illinois: $387,000
Louisiana (two audits of one affiliate): $6,147.18
Maine: $33,294.83
Nebraska: $3,537
New York (seven audits of four affiliates): $1,615,083.25
Ohio: none found
Oklahoma: unknown, but the overbilling rates have been documented as 14.1%, 18%, and 20.3%
Texas (two audits of two affiliates): $538,703.10 -$658,735.97
Washington (three audits of two or three affiliates):$640,595.88
Wisconsin (27 audits of one affiliate): $95,466.04

Live Action News previously documented that in Wisconsin, the Department of Health and Human Services found that as many as two-thirds of Planned Parenthood Wisconsin’s Medicaid payments were fraudulent, after auditing eight family planning facilities. Planned Parenthood had the highest percentage of over-billing. Planned Parenthood of the Heartland — now called Planned Parenthood North Central States — was also accused of committing Medicaid fraud, including patient abuses, the “unbundling” of services, and fraudulently tallying patients. A report from the U.S. House of Representatives also found that Planned Parenthood abused taxpayer funds, giving money to their political action fund for lobbying, spending millions of dollars on travel, and spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on themed fundraisers and lavish parties.

3. 340B Drug Discount abuse

Planned Parenthood’s abuses and history of fraud extend to the 340B Drug Discount Program, a federal government program which allows participating drug manufacturers to give certain covered health care entities access to discounted prices on outpatient drugs.

Live Action News previously documented incidents where Planned Parenthood used duplicate discounts against HRSA requirements and were in violation of program rules.

Planned Parenthood must be defunded

Despite the media myth that if Planned Parenthood is defunded, women will have nowhere else to go, Planned Parenthood’s abuses should result in the immediate defunding of the organization.

The fact is that, despite years of complaints from staffers about discrimination, retaliation, abuse, and racism, the organization ended the lives of 1,076 preborn children every day, nearly 45 every hour, and one every 80 seconds in 2022-23 while receiving $1.9 million dollars daily from U.S. taxpayers every.

Call on President Trump to pardon the FACE Act prisoners on his first day in office.