Planned Parenthood staffer got fired for getting tricked, providing nonjudgmental care

Via the Huffington Post:

A Planned Parenthood spokeswoman told The Huffington Post on Tuesday the staffer in the video "did not follow our protocol" for dealing with "a highly unusual patient scenario."

"Planned Parenthood insists on the highest quality patient care, and if we ever become aware of a staff member not meeting these high standards we take swift action," she said in a written statement. "Within three days of this patient interaction, the staff member's employment was ended and all staff members at this affiliate were immediately scheduled for retraining in managing unusual patient encounters. Today opponents of Planned Parenthood are promoting an edited video of that hoax patient encounter."

This spokeswoman for Planned Parenthood Federation of America also told The Huffington Post that the organization condemns seeking abortions on the basis of gender, but its policy is to provide "high quality, confidential, nonjudgmental care to all who come into" its health centers. That means that no Planned Parenthood clinic will deny a woman an abortion based on her reasons for wanting one, except in those states that explicitly prohibit sex-selective abortions (Arizona, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania and Illinois).

So in other words, this staffer wasn't fired for not providing a high standard of care. She was fired because she didn't follow Planned Parenthood protocols which attempt to avoid employees being caught on camera by Live Action actors ("highly unusual patient scenario") doing what Planned Parenthood is proud of doing (providing nonjudgmental care to all women who want abortions regardless of their reason).

That's a tough situation to put an employee in. Basically, if they aren't smart enough to realize they're getting taped by Live Action, then they get fired.

Live Action was pretty clever with their scenario. At the end of the video, the PP worker notes she hopes the actor gets her family and the actor says, "Yes. My boy and my girl." This leads me to believe the actor started the conversation by noting that she already has a girl child but wants to "family balance" and have one boy and one girl. This probably comes off as more normal/less unusual than wanting to abort a girl because you dislike girls or don't want to pay a dowry.

Some IVF clinics offer "family balancing" via pre-implantation genetic diagnosis because some couples want the "perfect family" with one boy and one girl. So - if you're Planned Parenthood employee is that a "highly unusual patient scenario?" Maybe. But to some people (especially those nonjudgmental types at PP) attempting to balance your family isn't unusual at all, but just another innocuous personal preference choice in the long line of reproductive choices.

I guess we should have known this was coming since Planned Parenthood basically admitted in their press release in April that staff had been fired.

Planned Parenthood has extensive guidelines and training requirements for all staff who may encounter difficult or unusual questions, such as those posed by the hoax patients. If a health center learns of an instance where a staff member has not fully followed policies or procedures, swift action is taken to remedy the situation.

How many more PP staffers got fired because they weren't quick to know they were being taped?