Planned Parenthood Refused Medical Leave to Employee Having Cancer Surgery

State   |   Micaiah Bilger   |   Nov 21, 2018   |   1:21PM   |   Indianapolis, IN

A former Planned Parenthood employee says the abortion chain did not treat her with the “care” that it claims to provide when she was diagnosed with cervical cancer in 2016.

Angela Brown recently settled a lawsuit with the abortion chain’s political arm in Indiana and Kentucky after she says it discriminated against her while she was battling cancer, the Indy Star reports.

Though the terms of the settlement are not public, Brown asked for $75,000 in lost wages and damages, as well as her old job back, according to the report.

Brown, who worked for Planned Parenthood for three years, alleges that she was denied family medical leave after being diagnosed with cervical cancer in 2016. Brown later was fired.

Interestingly, Planned Parenthood offers cervical cancer screening services, and often touts them when lobbying for the hundreds of millions of tax dollars it receives each year. Brown’s attorney highlighted the irony of this in her lawsuit.

“There’s an assumption that when you treat women with those issues, you’d be sympathetic to those issues,” said attorney Heather Falks, previously. “Our argument is this is retaliation for an employee who was seeking leave.”

Brown said Planned Parenthood refused to allow her to take time off under the 1993 Family and Medical Leave Act for biopsies and other appointments related to her cancer, according to the report.

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Here’s more:

The complaint details one instance in which Brown was told that having surgery wasn’t a good enough reason to take off, according to the lawsuit. The day before a biopsy surgery, Brown said had she called in to work “due to pain and bleeding associated with her disability.” Brown had informed her supervisors that she was going to have surgery due to the cancer, she said.

“The Defendant texted Ms. Brown stating ‘you will not take off without a valid reason,'” the complaint said.

Court documents show Planned Parenthood denied discriminating against Brown due to her disability.

Neither Planned Parenthood nor Brown’s attorneys would comment about the settlement to the news outlet.

It may come as no surprise to pro-life advocates, but Planned Parenthood does not have a good reputation as an employer any more than it does as an abortion provider. It has a high turn-over rate, and it has been working with the Trump administration to fight its employees’ attempts to unionize.

Planned Parenthood, the largest abortion chain in the United States, has faced lawsuits from former employees in the past as well. In 2004, a Houston, Texas Planned Parenthood allegedly failed to act when an abortion practitioner sexually harassed an employee and later forced the employee to resign. That same year a group of black and Hispanic employees filed a federal lawsuit alleging that they were treated in a racist manner by officials at a Planned Parenthood abortion business in southern California.