By The Editorial Board, The Wall Street Journal, July 17, 2019
Progressives are hurtling to the left so fast that even liberals in good standing are casualties of the tornado. Witness the coup this week at Planned Parenthood, which is a tacit reminder that the group is less a health-care outfit than a political lobby.
The Planned Parenthood board defenestrated president Leana Wen, a physician who had been on the job for less than a year. What happened? By Dr. Wen’s account she was pushed out because she wasn’t radical enough on abortion.
“I am leaving the organization sooner than I’d hoped because of philosophical differences about the direction and future of Planned Parenthood,” she wrote in a letter to colleagues. “I came to Planned Parenthood to run a national health care organization and to advocate for the broad range of public health policies that affect our patients’ health,” and she includes reproductive services on her list. But “the new Board leadership has determined that the priority of Planned Parenthood moving forward is to double down on abortion rights advocacy.”
Dr. Wen wasn’t moderate or timid about abortion. She tweeted this month that “We cannot live freely in the world when our basic right to access the reproductive healthcare we need—including safe, legal abortion care—is under attack. We’re fighting these bans & all other attempts to take away our fundamental right to bodily autonomy.” In this crowd every battle is Bunker Hill. ….