Katharine Mieszkowski’s 3rd Bay Citizen installment investigating the demise of Planned Parenthood Golden Gate (read about previous 2 here and here) hit the big time August 28 when the New York Times picked it up
In short, PPGG was hemorrhaging money, so PPFA cut them loose.
1. Yay!
2. How can an organization with so much access to tax $$$ go broke? What were the doing with the money -- using it for toilet paper? ("[T]ax filings show that the nonprofit lost $2.8 million during the 2008-9 tax year, at the same time its chief executive’s total compensation exceeded $340,000." That might explain some of it.)
3. Notice that killing patients or performing an abortion on a patient who was just there for a pelvic exam* won't get you disaffiliated, but losing money will.
*The May 24, 1993 issue of Legal Times notes that Alcida A., age 28, alleged that she went to Planned Parenthood February 25, 1992, for birth control pills. Alcida, who speaks only Spanish, was led to procedure room by Spanish-speaking employee who had her disrobe, put her in stirrups, inserted a speculum, and left the room. Planned Parenthood physician Marc Jerome entered room and initiated a vacuum abortion procedure. Alcida screamed for him to stop, Jerome "ignored the obvious pain and terror" of the woman, and continued with procedure. It turns out that Jerome had gone into wrong room and failed to correctly identify which patient he was about to operate on. Alcida's lawyer noted that she "suffers continuous flashbacks and crying episodes," particularly due to her strong religious opposition to abortion. Planned Parenthood successfully blocked Alcida's attempt to file suit anonymously, on the grounds that the suit "does not involve an abortion, or a woman's right to privacy when choosing to obtain an abortion. The female plaintiff in this case was not pregnant...did not seek and did not obtain an abortion." I'd note that she obtained one, against her will. What if this woman had been pregnant and there for a prenatal exam?
4 comments:
A lot of abortion docs used to resent PP for keeping the price you could charge for an abortion down.
Nowadays, most abortion docs are paid salaries, the same amount regardless of how many abortions they do, so it's not really an issue any more.
Yeah.....there were some good reasons why I didn't donate to PPGG even though I support abortion rights and lived in SF.
They were the ones who created that really offensive video making fun of pro-lifers, remember?
OC, totally off-topic, but wanted to share this with you -- Heart Failure, excerpts from one med student's diary of his 3rd year of med school. Couldn't help but think of you and your rantings against med school (particularly the bit about tattooing "get out of med school now" on your chest before donating your cadaver to a med school) while reading this.
It's horrendous that they treat doctors-in-training this way, as well as the patients themselves. But at least it explains some of the treatment people receive at the hands of certain doctors who are supposed to be caring.
OC, I remember listening to the tape of a NAF meeting in which the for-profit providers were griping about how PP undercut them left and right. It all boiled down to "You at PP use tax dollars to cover your overhead, then cut the abortion price down so low we can't match it." And we're seeing that dynamic now, as for-profit facilities keep closing and PP keeps building bigger and bigger abortion facilities -- the Sams Club of abortion.
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