An Operation Rescue Exposé by Cheryl Sullenger

St. Louis, MO – In the plethora of files logged in the licensing case against the Reproductive Health Services Planned Parenthood with the St. Louis Circuit Court and the Administrative Hearing Commission was the Declaration of Colleen McNicholas, an abortionist with RHS Planned Parenthood, who attempted to gaslight the court about the mishandling of abortions done under her “supervision” on four women.

The declaration, (marked Exhibit B in a larger document), was in response to a May 28, 2019 Statement of Deficiencies issued by the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services (DHSS) that detailed legal and patient care standards in an eye-popping 62-page report.

In her 19-page declaration dated June 27, 2019, McNicholas goes to great lengths to establish herself as a top-notch physician with an expertise in abortions and abortion training. 

“McNicholas tries to make herself appear to be above reproach, but we have followed McNicholas’ abortion career for several years and have collected documentation that shows she is prone to deception and dangerously shoddy patient care practices,” said Operation Rescue President Troy Newman.   “We also evaluated her declaration and found she used gaslighting, false definitions, and other forms of misinformation to bamboozle the court and make it appear that the so-called ‘care’ RHS Planned Parenthood provided those four women was the best care available, while making it appear that the DHSS was little more than a group of bumbling idiots that had inadequate understanding of the practice of medicine.”

Background at Columbia Planned Parenthood

McNicholas began working for RHS Planned Parenthood in St. Louis sometime in 2008.  Throughout her career, McNicholas would travel around the Midwest doing abortions at various abortion facilities, including facilities operated by Planned Parenthood Great Plains in Columbia and Kansas City, as well as an independent abortion business, Trust Women, that operates abortion facilities in Wichita, Kansas, and Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.

But it was her work at the Planned Parenthood facility in Columbia, Missouri, that drew attention of state legislators and regulators.

The Columbia Planned Parenthood had difficulty over the years maintaining an abortionist that held local hospital privileges, as required by law for a facility to be licensed as an abortion clinic.

In 2015, a  state interim legislative committee discovered that a member of the Missouri University (MU) staff had improperly used public resources to recruit McNicholas to provide abortions at Planned Parenthood’s Columbia center, which had been unable to offer abortions for three years due to a lack of abortionists that met licensing qualifications.

But McNicholas could not meet the qualifications for full hospital privileges, either.

The MU staffer and McNicholas then embarked on a scheme obtain so-called “refer and follow” privileges for McNicholas with MU’s University Hospital in Columbia.  Planned Parenthood then deceptively certified to the DHSS that McNicholas met the requirements of the Missouri Ambulatory Surgical Center Licensing Law (197.215 RSMo).

At that time, the DHSS was under the direction of Gail Vasterling, who granted a license to the Columbia Planned Parenthood then later resigned amid scandal once the licensing deception was uncovered.

In truth, the “refer and follow” privileges were merely a courtesy that only allowed McNicholas to suggest that Planned Parenthood patients visit University Hospital, and allowed her to receive information about their care.  It did not allow McNicholas to treat patients in any way.

Based on the fake hospital privileges, McNicholas began prescribing abortion pills at the Columbia Planned Parenthood in August 2015.

Once the deception was uncovered by the state interim legislative committee, with the help of local activists, the MU terminated all “refer and follow” agreements that had been made with McNicholas and one other retired physician – the only two people to ever get them.  McNicholas as forced to halt abortions in Columbia in December 2015.

McNicholas uses moldy suction abortion machine

Later, Planned Parenthood sued in Federal Court to challenge the long-standing Missouri hospital privilege law and obtained a preliminary injunction that allowed Mc Nicholas to continue abortions at the Columbia Planned Parenthood facility.

On September 26, 2018, the DHSS conducted a routine unannounced onsite annual licensing inspection.

What they found was frankly shocking.

The facility’s suction machine, used by McNicholas to do approximately 14 surgical abortion procedures each month, was in appalling condition. The inspection report submitted into evidence along with the state’s brief detailed the following observations and citations made by the DHSS inspector:

  • Rusted suction machine cabinets that posed an infection control issue since they prevented proper sanitation.
  • Bloody single-use plastic tubing attached to the machine’s glass suction canister that was never disposed of after the last abortion procedure on September 21, 2018.
  • Reusable tubing on the top of the suction machine was contaminated with black mold.
  • Staff admitted that the moldy tubing had been present for some time and that abortions continued to be conducted with that moldy tubing in place.
  • A black substance that could have been mold or dried blood coated the bottom of the glass suction canister.

A second suction machine stored in a closet was rusty and dirty with tape and adhesive residue that could not be properly cleaned, along with a six-inch streak of brown residue down the side of the suction machine’s cabinet that could have been dried blood.

Staff C, identified as the Health Center Manager at the Columbia Planned Parenthood, questioned the use of the abortion machine because of the moldy, blackened tubing. The deficiency report noted, “She had talked with other people about the issue with the reusable series connecting hose and it was not an infection control issue.”

McNicholas had continued to use the horrifically filthy machine on women despite the concerns to patient health and safety.

A judge eventually tossed out Planned Parenthood’s lawsuit and dropped the injunction.  The Columbia Planned Parenthood facility has not been allowed to conduct abortions since then.

McNicholas’ radical abortion agenda

McNicholas’ star seems to be on the rise within the Abortion Cartel.  In her declaration, she announced that when David Eisenberg, the current Medical Director of RHS Planned Parenthood, leaves his position later this month, she will assume the role as his replacement.  She is also the incoming Secretary/Treasurer for the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG).

She also serves as Director of the Ryan Residency Abortion Training Program and Assistant Director of the Family Planning Fellowship based at Washington University Medical School in St. Louis in affiliation with Barnes Jewish Hospital.

This might seem somewhat impressive at first blush, but a closer look reveals the Ryan program and Family Planned Fellowship are programs out of the radical Bixby Center for Global Reproductive Health based at the University of California San Francisco.  These programs aggressively promote and propagate abortion world-wide, train abortionists, and work to ensure that non-physicians can conduct abortions.  The Ryan program is heavily funded by a foundation associated with the family of leftist globalist billionaire Warren Buffett.

“McNicholas is an abortion activist.  She is onboard with a radical agenda that is bent on killing as many babies as possible.  This isn’t about ‘helping women.’  That’s just a ruse to dupe the uninformed.  This is about population control and reduction through abortion.  For these people, the primary solution to all social maladies and global problems is abortion,” said Newman.

Given the knowledge of McNicholas’ pattern of deceptive behavior and willingness to risk the health and safety of patients, her declaration must be viewed with skepticism.  Operation Rescue reviewed the declaration and found several points that raised red flags as to McNicholas’ veracity.

Up Next — McNicholas Declaration Part 2: St. Louis Planned Parenthood’s Abortionist’s Excuses for the Inexcusable