In July, Planned Parenthood fired then president Leana Wen. We covered her firing and the gossip surrounding her involuntary departure here.
When she was canned, Wen tweeted:
Two months later and the “good faith negotiations” have yet to conclude.
According to the New York Times, Wen accused Planned Parenthood of trying to “buy” her silence and of “withholding her health insurance and departure payout as “ransom” to pressure her to sign a confidentiality agreement.”
Leana Wen, the recently fired former president of Planned Parenthood, appears headed toward an increasingly contentious exit, after accusing the organization’s leadership of trying to “buy my silence” in a dispute that threatens to prolong and magnify an acrimonious transition at the top of the nation’s best known women’s health care and reproductive rights group.
Dr. Wen has been engaged in two months of fraught negotiations over her severance package since she was fired in July. She led Planned Parenthood for less than a year and accused the organization of withholding her health insurance and departure payout as “ransom” to pressure her to sign a confidentiality agreement.
She made the accusations in a barbed 1,400-word letter to Planned Parenthood’s board of directors this past week, which was obtained by The New York Times. “No amount of money can ever buy my integrity and my commitment to the patients I serve,” Dr. Wen wrote.
…Planned Parenthood disputed Dr. Wen’s characterizations.
“Dr. Wen’s recent allegations are unfortunate, saddening, and simply untrue,” said Melanie Newman, a senior vice president for communications at Planned Parenthood. “The attorneys representing the board have made every good faith effort to amicably part from Dr. Wen, and are disappointed that they have been unable to reach a suitable resolution regarding her exit package.”
Ms. Newman noted Dr. Wen has remained on payroll during the negotiations and will be salaried through mid-October, with health benefits through the end of that month under COBRA. Ms. Newman said Planned Parenthood had offered Dr. Wen a full additional year of salary and health benefits “under terms that are standard and consistent with her employment agreement and any reasonable executive exit package.”
The dispute, in many ways, is a classic and familiar one: A fired executive seeking compensation and the organization seeking a non-disclosure agreement.
All seems pretty standard. Regardless, if you need me, I’ll be over here all:
Especially when Wen claims she was fired because she was trying to get the organization to focus less on abortion and more on women’s health which is what Planned Parenthood always claims they’re about.
NYT (ctd):
Dr. Wen blamed her sacking on disagreements over her reorienting the organization further from abortion politics and more toward its role as a women’s health provider.
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