A former employee at a St. Louis Planned Parenthood facility has filed a lawsuit against the organization, alleging she was terminated due to race.
According to First Alert 4, Teona McGhaw filed a lawsuit against Advocates of Planned Parenthood of the St. Louis Region & Southwest Missouri in April, after she was terminated from her position with the organization. McGhaw contends she was fired because she is Black; Planned Parenthood says it let her go because she was also serving as president of the National Women’s Political Caucus and the overlapping roles were a conflict of interest.
“When two white women did it — nothing happened to them,” said Rob Schultz with Schultz Law Group, McGhaw’s lawyer. “And it makes no sense for Planned Parenthood to say ‘that’s a conflict of interest,’ because what is the conflict of interest? They’re both — on the abortion issue — they’re both allied with each other.”
Richard Muniz, interim president and CEO of Planned Parenthood of the St. Louis Region & Southwest Missouri, gave a statement to First Alert 4 about the allegations.
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“This lawsuit has no merit,” Muniz said. “As a nonprofit organization working in our community and regularly under political attack, we must maintain standards assuring our staff, board members, and volunteers have no conflicts of interest between our work and their outside contributions; we make every effort to work constructively with staff members to find favorable outcomes while supporting their outside activities. While we recognize this can feel limiting, these standards are in place to ensure that we can continue to provide the best possible care to our patients.”
This is just the latest in a string of allegations against the nation’s largest abortion business. Last year, it was subject to two dozen racial discrimination lawsuits, with former employees alleging that racism was a part of company culture and that Black employees were often treated with disdain.
Indeed, racism within Planned Parenthood is well-documented all the way back to its founding. Margaret Sanger, the founder of Planned Parenthood, was well-known for her racist and eugenic ideology. Though the organization has tried to distance itself from Sanger’s ideals, some employees claim the racist atmosphere still pervades.
