Ex-Planned Parenthood director says abortion giant seduces immigrants with threat of deportation
A former Planned Parenthood director warned over the weekend that the nation’s largest abortion provider exploits American immigration law and economic anxiety to encourage abortion in the Latino community in the United States and abroad.
Mayra Rodriguez, who worked with Planned Parenthood for over a decade and a half and at one point oversaw three clinics in Arizona before being fired after she reported unsafe medical practices, spoke at the Democrats for Life of America’s annual conference in Columbus, Ohio, Saturday.
“For 16 years, I devoted my life to Planned Parenthood,” she said. “As an undocumented immigrant, Planned Parenthood opened the doors to the American dream. … They hired me knowing I was undocumented.”
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She said Planned Parenthood’s decision to hire her despite her immigration status at the time was “the greatest and the most kind” action that an organization could take.
Rodriguez spent most of her career at Planned Parenthood providing women with birth control and treatment for sexually transmitted diseases.
She reported that she was hired to “attract the undocumented immigrant community.” While she did not deal with abortion during most of her time at Planned Parenthood, she held the belief that it's a woman's choice to have an abortion even though she wouldn't have one herself.
According to Rodriguez, the “undocumented immigrant community” knows “nothing about Planned Parenthood, just like I didn’t.” Rodriguez said her friends told her, “they care for women. … They don’t care if you don’t have papers, just come work.”
After 16 years with the company, Rodriguez was promoted to abortion director at “the biggest [Planned Parenthood] clinic in the state of Arizona.” Rodriguez’s promotion made her aware of what she said is “the deception of Planned Parenthood” on the abortion issue.
Rodriguez, who now resides in the U.S. legally, noted that many illegal immigrant women who work in fields are raped by their foremen and then taken to Planned Parenthood.
She said Planned Parenthood officials tell “immigrants that they’re welcome there: 'we won’t deport you, we won’t call ICE on you. But if you carry your baby and go to the hospital and you live, for example, in Arizona or Ohio or other states where they have very strict anti-undocumented people laws, you may get deported.'"
“So when you have that, what do women think?” she asked. “'Oh, I cannot have a child because I might get deported, and I could get separated from my other three kids.' … As an immigrant, I can tell you it is the worst feeling ever to know that you may have to leave this country.”
Rodriguez argued that Planned Parenthood is lobbying to legalize abortion internationally.
"We are down to six Latin American countries that are still pro-life because the rest of them, they have managed to get inside and affiliate with organizations in those countries and finance them to promote abortion," she said.
While referencing an earlier panel discussion at the DFLA conference on the death penalty, Rodriguez likened herself to a warden who oversaw the administration of lethal injections to criminals on death row, calling abortion “the death penalty of the unborn.”
“It takes about 15 to 26 minutes for an abortion. They suffocate them and they also inject a saline solution into their heart until their heart stops for 24 hours before they pull them out piece by piece," she explained. "So, it is a death penalty to the unborn.”
Not long after her promotion, Rodriguez began to have a change of heart.
“I noticed all the atrocities. I noticed the irregularities. I noticed the malpractice. I noticed all the stuff the abortionists at Planned Parenthood hide from people. And I complained about it," she told the audience. "That got me fired and got me set up. Yeah, I was accused falsely of having narcotics in my office while I was out of my office.”
Following her firing in 2017, Rodriguez took her former employer to court and won a lawsuit in 2019 against Planned Parenthood for wrongful termination under the Whistleblower Protection Act.
Now, she characterizes herself as “a dedicated pro-life activist” committed to speaking out “against Planned Parenthood and the dangers of abortion, not only nationally but across the globe.”
Rodriguez works with the pro-life group And Then There Were None, which seeks to help abortion clinic workers leave the industry.
“We need to stop the business of Planned Parenthood," she said. "We need to stop the business of other abortionists attacking our women and going after our immigrant communities and minority communities.”
When asked by an attendee about the issue of teachers encouraging pregnant high school girls to get an abortion, Rodriguez declared that part of her training at Planned Parenthood taught her how to sow the seeds of doubt in the mind of your girls facing unplanned pregnancies.
“They train you to tell them … and portray the horrible life if they have a child," she said. "'What are you to going to do?' 'Your mom’s going to kick you [out],' 'the school’s going to kick you [out],' … 'you’re not going to finish your schooling.' 'Your boyfriend’s going to leave you. ...' 'Your parents are not going to be with you. They’re going to be tired of babysitting for you and you’re going to have to drop out of school.'”
After hearing that pessimistic outlook for their future, Rodriguez said that many girls see abortion as the most logical option.
“And then, if that doesn’t work, then [they] give them the guilt trip that 'that child deserves a good life that you cannot give right now. So, out of love of your child, you should kill him.'”
Rodriguez stressed the importance of countering the message by telling girls that having a child is “a blessing.”
"[There are] obstacles. I’m not saying that being a mother has been easy and pink and all unicorns,” she said. “It is also the biggest blessing of my life.”
“We have to change our society, the way we face teen pregnancy,” she added. She slammed the culture for showering teens who get pregnant with “negative comments about maternity, about parenthood … [or] complaining about how horrible it is to have children or how tiring.”
Ryan Foley is a reporter for The Christian Post. He can be reached at: ryan.foley@christianpost.com
