Planned Parenthood Demands Less Oversight While Facing Shocking 28-Week Abortion Allegations

Can Planned Parenthood be trusted to police itself? As we previously reported, the ACLJ stood shoulder to shoulder with Missouri Attorney General Catherine Hanaway as her office defended basic protections for women and unborn children against Planned Parenthood’s sweeping legal attack.

Now, a disturbing new federal lawsuit puts Planned Parenthood’s demand for trust in a stark new light.

Jacqueline Colyer, a former senior executive of Planned Parenthood Great Rivers, a leading provider of abortion in the state of Missouri, alleges that the organization retaliated against her after she reported an unauthorized and allegedly illegal abortion performed after hours at approximately 28 weeks’ gestation.

If the allegations of the whistleblower are true, they confirm everything we thought we knew about Planned Parenthood: It can’t be trusted to police itself.

An Alleged After-Hours Abortion at 28 Weeks

Colyer formerly served as Planned Parenthood Great Rivers’ Vice President of Human Resources. According to her complaint, she learned that an abortion had allegedly been performed after hours on a Sunday evening in the basement of Planned Parenthood’s Fairview Heights, Illinois, clinic. An employee was reportedly called to unlock the clinic for the abortion, which allegedly involved an unborn child at approximately 28 weeks’ gestation.

Colyer reported the incident through a third-party system that Planned Parenthood represented as confidential and anonymous. She urged investigators to review security-camera footage and after-hours key-fob records. Three weeks later, according to the complaint, another anonymous report alleged that an abortion had been “provided in the basement of our clinic on a Sunday.”

Colyer alleges that she was removed from handling the report despite internal procedures requiring the participation of the Vice President of Human Resources. She claims Planned Parenthood Great Rivers’ interim President and CEO, Richard Muniz, took control of the investigation and ultimately closed it with a finding of no misconduct.

Fourteen days after Colyer submitted her initial report, she received the only written discipline of her employment for alleged “insubordination and dishonesty.” Less than five months later, she was fired.

Under Illinois law, once a health care professional determines that an unborn child is viable, an abortion may be performed only if, in the professional’s judgment, it is necessary to protect the patient’s life or health. Colyer alleges that the abortion occurred after viability, at approximately 28 weeks, outside normal operating hours, with no indication that it was necessary to protect the woman’s life or health.

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The Same Planned Parenthood Defendant Is Fighting Missouri’s Safeguards

Although the alleged abortion occurred at an Illinois clinic operated by Planned Parenthood Great Rivers, Colyer’s lawsuit also names Planned Parenthood Great Rivers-Missouri as a defendant. Her complaint alleges that the two entities operated as a single integrated enterprise and as her joint employers.

As we've previously reported, Planned Parenthood Great Rivers-Missouri is the same entity that challenged approximately 40 abortion-related statutes and regulations in Missouri. These shocking allegations show exactly what is at stake in Missouri’s fight for meaningful oversight of abortion providers. Colyer alleges that the integrated Planned Parenthood enterprise failed to follow its own investigative procedures after receiving reports of a potentially illegal abortion and then retaliated against her for raising the alarm. At the same time, Planned Parenthood Great Rivers-Missouri is seeking to eliminate Missouri safeguards governing abortion-facility licensing, health and safety standards, abortion reporting, professional accountability, and abortions performed after viability.

The ACLJ has stood alongside the Missouri Attorney General throughout Planned Parenthood’s sweeping legal attack. Our attorneys assisted in discovery, prepared for and conducted depositions of Planned Parenthood witnesses, and supported Missouri’s defense of these safeguards at trial.

The trial court ultimately invalidated numerous protections, including abortion-facility licensing and reporting requirements and part of Missouri’s post-viability law. Missouri is appealing that judgment to the Missouri Supreme Court, and the ACLJ continues to support Missouri’s fight for meaningful oversight.

Colyer filed her federal lawsuit after the Missouri trial, so her allegations were not part of the trial record. But they underscore precisely why Missouri’s appeal matters.

“Trust Us” Is Not a Substitute for Accountability

Planned Parenthood’s argument in Missouri rests on a simple demand: Replace enforceable safeguards with trust.

Trust abortion providers to exercise lawful professional judgment. Trust existing licensing systems to catch misconduct. Trust Planned Parenthood to investigate itself. And trust it to operate without abortion-specific oversight.

Planned Parenthood’s demand for trust becomes even more alarming when measured against the testimony it chose to present in Missouri. As we previously reported, one of its experts testified that even infants and toddlers likely cannot feel pain because they are not “conscious beings.” He then reduced viability to a grim, after-the-fact test: “[I]f it dies, then it was not a viable pregnancy.” Yet Planned Parenthood still demands one thing from the courts: Trust us.

That testimony takes on new significance when a former Planned Parenthood executive alleges that the organization mishandled reports of a potentially illegal abortion at approximately 28 weeks. Planned Parenthood cannot ask courts to defer to such views of pain and viability while demanding the elimination of independent safeguards designed to hold abortion providers accountable.

If Colyer's allegations are proven, it would expose the grave risks of self-policing. Internal policies protect patients and employees only when organizations follow them. Professional judgment cannot substitute for independent accountability. Licensing systems cannot protect patients if potential violations are hidden or never reported. And a confidential whistleblower process is meaningless if employees who use it face retaliation.

External safeguards are not unnecessary burdens. They exist because no medical provider should have final and unreviewable authority to decide whether its own conduct was lawful, safe, and ethical.

Planned Parenthood cannot demand the elimination of external oversight while insisting that the public simply trust it to police itself. No organization – including Planned Parenthood – is above the law.

The ACLJ will continue standing with Missouri and fighting nationwide to protect women and unborn children from an abortion industry that demands less oversight and greater immunity from accountability.

Take action with us. Add your name to our petition to stop Planned Parenthood’s nationwide war on babies.