Interview with Planned Parenthood Whistleblower Mayra Rodriguez
Is Planned Parenthood required to tell patients when medical students or residents are being trained during their appointments?
No. They not required to tell patients. Most patients will never know if an inexperienced medical student, intern, or nurse practitioner performs their abortion. In fact, it’s commonly not charted at all if an abortion is done by someone other than a physician. The patient is sedated prior to their procedure, and Planned Parenthood's policy does not require patients to know who is in the room.
During a D&C, the doctor is often only an observer. Clinic staff will know that a medical student went “too far” with the vacuum, based on the facial reaction of the doctor. It’s something you don’t forget.
Abortion is a blind surgery. Performing an abortion is difficult enough for an experienced abortionist, let alone for the “first time” by an inexperienced medical student. Women can be seriously injured or become unable to have children following an abortion. Patients have the right to know who is performing a potentially life changing procedure on them. Women should not be treated like unknowing guinea pigs.
Do you feel that Planned Parenthood should be required to?
Yes, I believe it should be required. I don’t know what is required by law, but I know that as a matter of policy, in my experience, certain information is kept from women in order to avoid patient complaints.
If a woman is going to be a guinea pig, she has the right to know. Women have the right to know who is going to kill their baby. What’s the difference between a “back alley abortion” and a “legal and safe abortion” when they’re both performed by someone who has never done one before? For many women, not enough.
If a doctor with 30 years of experience can cause 50% of the complications at an abortion clinic, can you imagine what the statistics could be for a medical student? Abortion is a blind surgery. A woman may not know for years if she was injured by it. Adding insult to injury, vital information isn’t always documented. My lawsuit against Planned Parenthood included evidence that what was documented on a woman’s chart may be very different from what actually happened during the surgery. This is very dangerous; women have a right to know what happens to their bodies.
So patients are sometimes not notified when someone with less experience, or zero experience, is going to do the procedure?
That is correct. In my experience, women are not told who is performing the abortion. I don’t think it’s honest to keep this information from women; I argued this point many times as a Planned Parenthood clinic director. Very often, women have no idea who is performing the abortion; in a way, it’s a blind procedure for everyone.
An example we used in my trial against Planned Parenthood was that of a young woman at my clinic seeking an abortion. An abortionist inserted an IUD after the procedure, before the “products of conception” (the baby) were accounted for, which confirms that all of the baby’s parts were recovered.
During an abortion, the baby is torn apart alive, and the separated body parts must be accounted for. If left inside the mother, they can become necrotic, cause excessive bleeding, and lead to life threatening consequences.
The medical assistant dumped the baby’s remains onto a table and counted: two arms, two legs, her torso…in a pool of blood and pieced them back together. The baby’s head was missing. The abortionist told the medical assistant to “look in the trash,” before performing a second abortion to remove the IUD, and locate the baby’s head, which was still inside the mother. Abortion is always a barbaric and inhumane act.
That young woman has no idea that she had two abortions that day.
That her baby’s head was lost inside of her.
She has a right to know what happened, and that she may not be able to have children.
Her chart wasn’t properly documented; it was falsified “abortion completed without complications.”
If an “experienced” doctor practicing over 30 years could cause this level of trauma to a woman, can you imagine the damage an inexperienced medical student could do?
Women and the unborn deserve better than this, which is why I am here today.
Do you think patients are negatively affected when student-abortionists are providing the "care" at Planned Parenthood?
They can be. Abortion is the only procedure I know of where little to no experience is required to perform that surgery. Abortion is a dangerous elective procedure with significant risk ranging from infection and excessive bleeding, to infertility and death. There’s no such thing as a guaranteed safe abortion.
The Planned Parenthood clinics I directed relied on local medical students to keep the doors open. Medical schools required students to dedicate hours to Planned Parenthood, often against their will, as a rotation or graduation requirement. I’ve seen students kicked out of their medical programs for refusing to perform abortions, and students crying in our parking lot, unprepared for what abortion was really like.
This is why it is my mission is to make abortion unthinkable. Everyone it touches is a victim. It is not “care” when you are killing babies.
