Employees of Planned Parenthood Pennsylvania Advocates (PPPA) have written an open letter that calls upon the group’s executive director to resign amid allegations she has used “racist, transphobic, classist language, and language which perpetuates stigma against abortion.”
🚨 update 🚨 all senior leadership – except for our Executive Director, Emily Callen – has signed a letter in support of our demands. Read it here: https://t.co/YPw29zUxyx #SavePPPA pic.twitter.com/mYVqXssF8O
— Save PPPA (@SavePPPA) November 28, 2020
Staff members of PPPA allege Emily Callen has also been “fiscally irresponsible,” and charge the organization has been unable to achieve its mission of making PPPA “the effective feminist, anti-racist organization that we know it has the potential to be.”
The employees assert many of them began work for Planned Parenthood “knowing its white supremacist history.”
The group provides summaries of its issues with Callen, including that she has “de-prioritized abortion in public facing work;” allowed contractors to engage in “misgendering trans and non-binary staff” and refer to “undocumented immigrants” as “illegals;” and did not immediately put out a statement of solidarity with Black Lives Matter after George Floyd’s death.
The workers also accuse Callen, who they say earns an annual salary of $110,000, of refusing to take “a temporary pay cut to get us through the pandemic,” while they claim she has refused to pay for employees’ internet service while they worked from home.
The PPPA staff concludes:
We are calling on our colleagues, partner organizations, elected officials, volunteers, and communities to sign onto this letter and demand that Emily Callen step down, and that the PPPA board appoint a temporary Executive Director who will work with us as equal partners to find the appropriate solutions to our budget constraints, as well as to address the deep issues we are facing.
Planned Parenthood has faced other accusations of racism in recent months.
In June, Laura McQuade, former CEO of Planned Parenthood Greater New York, was ousted after employees of the abortion provider accused her of “systemic racism” and “abuse.”
Former and current Planned Parenthood employees accused McQuade of “financial mismanagement,” and “racism and weaponizing of the work of diversity, equity, and inclusion against staff.”
The workers noted, “Planned Parenthood was founded by a racist, white woman. That is a part of history that cannot be changed.”
Alexis McGill Johnson, CEO of Planned Parenthood, continues the narrative, nevertheless, that Planned Parenthood is fighting “white supremacy”:
We know white supremacy limits sexual and reproductive health. We must fight to eradicate it @PPFA.
Our freedom depends on it, and our mission demands it.
— Alexis McGill Johnson (@alexismcgill) August 28, 2020
Planned Parenthood has also been accused of discrimination against pregnant women in its workplaces.
In December 2018, the New York Times reported current and former Planned Parenthood employees said the abortion business had mistreated and discriminated against pregnant women and new mothers in the workplace.
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