No One Could Know

A former Planned Parenthood worker of 17 years hopes more people will learn what webcam abortions are.

After speaking at a pro-life event with presidential candidates on Wednesday night, Sept. 2, in Iowa, Sue Thayer flew to Wisconsin to address the state senate hearing regarding their possible defunding of Planned Parenthood.

Thayer’s perspective is unique in the pro-life movement, as someone who worked inside Storm Lake, Iowa’s Planned Parenthood.  She served there from April of 1991 until December 2008 when she was fired – essentially for having a conscience.

“I’m in litigation with them about some unethical and illegal practices that go on there,” Thayer told me on Tuesday night. “I stayed quiet for years, but God convicted me to do something about it. If I stay quiet, then how God redeemed my life is all for naught.”

Thayer said she began to see the truth in 2002 when a deceased baby was found in a recycling center. To investigate the baby’s death, the county attorney and the FBI issued a subpoena to all organizations that issued pregnancy tests, Thayer said. All but Planned Parenthood submitted files.

“They turned it into a media circus and raised tens of thousands of dollars. Dan Rather, the Associated Press, National Public Radio and cameras from all over the country set up across the street from my house,” she said. “My boss was featured in ‘Ms.’ and ‘People’ magazines and said she was willing to go jail defending thousands of women’s health records that would be compromised. She was lying.”

Thayer reminded her boss only a handful of records would be impacted and she offered to call each of the women for permission to share their records with investigators and narrow the search.

Her boss wouldn’t allow it.

“That was the first time I saw they were flat out lying,” she said.

Thayer became more disenchanted in 2007 when Iowa became the first state in the nation to conduct abortions via computer web cameras and she was asked to conduct trans-vaginal ultrasounds, though she was not medically trained.

“It’s an invasive procedure that you should be medically trained to do. My boss said, ‘Sue, if you’ve played a video game, it’s like operating a joy stick, you can do it.’ Doctors in the community did not like what was going on,” Thayer said. “The whole issue is bad – very bad – if you were to rupture the uterus, there’s no medical personnel to assist.”

To perform such abortions, she explained, the baby’s ultrasound image is scanned to a doctor in Des Moines who pushes a button which remotely opens a dispensary door for a patient to take out medication. The first set of pills blocks hormones to the baby so it dies, the next set of pills is taken at home 48 hours later and causes heavy bleeding, Thayer said.

“The blood, and clots, and gore … a lot of times the women see a little baby come out and they’re all on their own at home without medical supervision,” she said.

Thayer voiced those concerns to her employer. Her colleagues argued that their only job was to write “occurrence” reports for the many complications.

“They just got crabbier. We’d been telling everyone we didn’t do abortions – we prevented pregnancy. I asked if they’d tell doctors in every town what we were doing so they’d be aware they could be seeing these women in emergency rooms. I know they saw a lot of women,” Thayer said.

“Women would bring their babies to us inside a zip-lock bag, saying, ‘You never told me this was a baby – you said it was just tissue … a ‘product of conception,’” Thayer continued. “Planned Parenthood didn’t want doctors to know what they were doing. It was all under cover.”

Thayer said the cost then for a webcam abortion was $450, the same as a medical or chemical abortion.

“The reason they loved webcams is because they don’t have to pay a doctor to drive all over the state or pay for surgical equipment and suction machines. The pills are relatively inexpensive,” she said.

And, she said, the fiber optics, webcams and the 4D ultrasound machine were donated, so Planned Parenthood had no upfront costs.

“It was a big money maker. They made plans to market it and wanted a facility on every corner in America,” she said. “Minnesota and Iowa remain the only two states to perform them. Several states have banned them.”

Thayer has addressed several state senates, she said.

“An Arkansas senator said, ‘Oh little lady, that won’t happen in Arkansas.’ I said, ‘Sir, with all respect, they’ll move the equipment in overnight, advertise to the woman at the desk and do it anyway,” Thayer said.

When reporters would ask about the practice, Thayer said Planned Parenthood workers would reply that they’re simply meeting women’s needs.

To do just that, in 2012, Thayer founded a nondenominational pregnancy center in Storm Lake called Cornerstone for Life. She also sided with the national ecumenical organization, 40 Days for Life, which is a prayer vigil.

“I started the prayer vigil in front of where I’d been fired. We prayed Psalm 139, and prayed 12 hours a day for 40 days, then two months later Planned Parenthood closed,” she said.

Her pregnancy center has since helped many girls, but August 16 of this year, Cornerstone for Life had its first official “save.” A 17-year-old called Thayer’s number on a Sunday – when the center is closed – to ask where she could get an abortion. Thayer met with her that day.

“I showed her the pregnancy date wheel and we saw that that very day her baby’s heart started beating,” she said. “Her face was shocked and she decided not to have an abortion.”

Thayer believes that in order to save more babies, the recently released videos which expose Planned Parenthood’s practices should continue to be shared with others – and pro-life people should pray.

“Prayers in front of a clinic touch the workers in an interesting way. It blesses the women coming and going to see you holding a sign that says, ‘We can help you today,’” Thayer said. “God wanted me to get out on the sidewalk and face my former coworkers. It was humiliating, but the power of prayer must not be underestimated.”

Thayer also encourages people to write to congressmen and senators.

When she’s not traveling as a speaker, she continues to work in the clinic helping women, as she knows motherhood’s challenges first-hand. She’s a single mother of five, including two foster children. The youngest started kindergarten this week.

You formed my inward parts; You covered me in my mother’s womb. – Psalm 139:13