One of the most high-profile figures in the campaign to expand abortion access in Missouri has resigned from her position at Planned Parenthood’s St. Louis-based affiliate.
Dr. Colleen McNicholas, an OB-GYN, has served as the chief medical officer at Planned Parenthood Great Rivers since 2019. Under her leadership, the organization opened its Fairview Heights clinic in the Metro East as legal restrictions made access to abortion more difficult and eventually illegal to obtain in Missouri.
“The decision to leave these health centers might be one of the hardest I have yet to encounter in my career,” McNicholas posted Monday evening on the social media platform X and Instagram. “Today, I'm leaning on words I share with patients all the time. ... Decisions can be hard and sad and right all at the same time.”
She did not immediately respond to requests for an interview. Her resignation comes on the day the affiliate, which operates clinics in Missouri and Illinois, announced it had hired Margot Riphagen as its new CEO.
“Planned Parenthood Great Rivers and PPGR Action would not be the successful health care and advocacy organizations they are today without the leadership of Colleen McNicholas,” Riphagen said in a statement. “During her tenure, PPGR has opened our Fairview Heights health center to provide abortions in southern Illinois, establish access to gender-affirming care, and build strong teams in our health centers. I thank her for her leadership and wish her well in their future endeavors. She will always be part of the PPGR community.”
A spokesman for Planned Parenthood said McNicholas would leave her position next month.
During McNicholas’ tenure as chief medical officer, the organization opened its 18,000-square-foot clinic in Illinois, where there are far fewer restrictions on abortions. It also introduced its Regional Logistics Center, a call center that connects patients having an abortion in the Metro East to funds for travel, lodging and other expenses.
The organization's Fairview Heights clinic saw a large influx of patients seeking abortions as Missouri and several other states in the South and the Midwest restricted or prohibited the procedure in the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2022 decision overturning Roe v. Wade. McNicholas and other workers at Planned Parenthood extended hours at the clinic to meet the surging demand.
Planned Parenthood Great Rivers introduced a mobile clinic in 2022 that is intended to serve patients along the borders of states with restrictive abortion laws.
McNicholas’ resignation is not the only recent high-profile departure from state-based Planned Parenthood officials. Planned Parenthood Illinois CEO Jennifer Welch last week announced she was resigning after seven years on the job.
McNicholas’ departure comes at a pivotal political moment for the organization. Planned Parenthood Great Rivers was poised to offer abortions last year after voters approved Amendment 3, which placed the right to the procedure in the state’s constitution.
Planned Parenthood Great Rivers and its western Missouri counterpart, Planned Parenthood Great Plains, sued the state to overturn its ban that was put in place in 2022.
The lawsuit also sought to overturn other laws providers and advocates said placed obstacles to abortion access, sometimes known as TRAP laws. In December, a judge overturned the ban and some procedures but left others in place.
McNicholas said at the time the clinics still would not perform abortions because the laws, including one that mandates a patient receive a pelvic exam before an abortion, were medically unnecessary, unfeasible and unethical.
“We also need to consider whether the way that we're providing care is patient-centered and appropriate,” she said in early December.
According to her LinkedIn profile, McNicholas recently founded the Raven Lab for Reproductive Liberation, an abortion-rights organization that “will develop public campaigns using messaging informed by new opinion polling, research findings, and our extensive experience communicating with patients, partners, and collaborators.”
McNicholas and fellow Raven Lab cofounder Jenni Villavicencio last summer authored a brief criticizing limits on abortion based on viability, a fetus’ ability to survive outside the womb. That’s generally around 24 weeks gestation.
Missouri’s Amendment 3 legalizes abortions to the point of viability. The amendment also legalizes some abortions after that point if health care professionals determine the procedure necessary to protect the life or mental health of the person having the abortion.
In her social media posts, McNicholas thanked workers at Planned Parenthood’s clinics and said she would continue to work advocating for abortion access.
“I’m not leaving the fight. I will continue to live my values, center the most impacted, and work until every abortion seeker has the experience they deserve,” she wrote. “My greatest hope is that each of you will join me and the many brave advocates who see this moment in our country as an opportunity to step up and challenge the conventional wisdom that has brought our progressive causes to its knees.”
