To hear former Planned Parenthood Southeast staffers tell it, the alarm bells started going off in the summer of 2024. The latest CEO had just been ousted, and the organization needed a seasoned reproductive rights advocate to lead it through a period of unprecedented political and institutional upheaval. Instead, Mairo Akposé, the new interim chief executive, was an HR specialist with no background in reproductive health issues who had a side business managing a portfolio of Atlanta-area Airbnbs.
Over the next year, the staffers’ unease deepened. The right wing’s playbook has long been to decimate Planned Parenthood by starving it of resources; with the reelection of Donald Trump, affiliates have faced massive funding cuts that threatened access to the full range of health care services that Planned Parenthood provides, including abortion, birth control, breast cancer screenings, Pap smears, STI testing, and sex education. Affiliates in multiple states have closed locations in response to the cuts.
The region served by Planned Parenthood’s Southeastern chapter—Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi—is one of America’s poorest and most conservative, dominated by lawmakers intent on pushing ever-more-draconian policies regardless of their impact on reproductive care. In years past, PPSE stood up strongly against such policies, with its CEO serving as the affiliate’s most public face and loudest voice. That work has become even more important since the reversal of Roe v. Wade in 2022, as Alabama and Mississippi have implemented near-total abortion bans and Georgia has banned the procedure after six weeks of pregnancy under virtually all circumstances.
“In a region particularly hit by reproductive oppression…I feel very frightened as a professional, as an advocate, and as a patient.”
But instead of helping steer Planned Parenthood Southeast through the Trump-era turmoil, Mairo Akposé has touched off a new crisis that has left the organization and its allies badly shaken. Activists say it’s a red flag about the kinds of threats Planned Parenthood and its affiliates could likely face in an increasingly hostile political landscape. What’s happening at PPSE “feels very dangerous in this moment,” said Elizabeth Ann Mosley, a reproductive health researcher and advocate based in Atlanta who has worked closely with the organization in the past. “In a region particularly hit by reproductive oppression…I feel very frightened as a professional, as an advocate, and as a patient.”
Akposé joined PPSE as an HR consultant in 2023 and became interim CEO in July 2024; late last year, staff were told that she would be in the CEO job indefinitely. Her lack of experience in the reproductive rights movement wasn’t the only thing that made her an odd choice for such a high-profile position. On social media, she was The Working Wife (mantra: “God. Spouse. Children. Career…in that order”) and the Wise ‘Ol HR Lady of TikTok. She was also a proud trustee of Georgia’s Berry College, one of the country’s most conservative higher-ed institutions. Yet even as her role solidified and expanded, Akposé was rarely out front when it came to PPSE’s work; her LinkedIn profile didn’t even mention Planned Parenthood Southeast by name.
The people Akposé hired for leadership positions were as new to the reproductive health world as she was—her pick for executive director even described herself in a 2022 interview with a Black-owned newspaper in Chicago as “pro-life,” a term associated with abortion opponents. In September, the new VP for external affairs, Tangela Parker, asked a colleague in an email if PPSE had ever worked with Students for Life, one of the preeminent anti-abortion groups in the country. (As the activists behind the Instagram channel women_inamerica noted, “That’s like asking if the ACLU has ever partnered with the KKK.”) PPSE did not respond to a request for comment about these issues.
Meanwhile, Akposé embarked on a series of major layoffs and restructuring without much warning or explanation, more than a dozen current and former staffers told Mother Jones. In October 2024, PPSE’s director of grant development and administration was let go, along with four lower-level employees. This past July, the security and facilities manager and head of IT—responsible for ensuring the safety of PPSE’s facilities and staff at a time of escalating threats against abortion providers and reproductive health clinics nationwide—were laid off.
Then, in late September, PPSE’s education director and the entire team in charge of policy advocacy for the region were terminated, a total of six people. Among other critical work, this group was leading PPSE’s fight against a Georgia bill seeking to criminalize abortion from the beginning of pregnancy. The medical director was pushed out as well. The firings rattled remaining employees and allies in other organizations that have worked closely with PPSE over the years. Staci Fox, who served as the organization’s CEO from 2013 to 2022, said she found the developments deeply upsetting. “I was really proud of what I left, knowing that they were walking into a very hard time,” she said. “It makes me just so sad that their frontline staff are feeling these things in the midst of all this external trauma going on.”
“It makes me just so sad that their frontline staff are feeling these things in the midst of all this external trauma going on.”
A few days after the first round of layoffs, an anonymous group of activists affiliated with PPSE went public with their concerns about the new leadership, contending in a petition that PPSE is “under immediate and dangerous threat from within.” The recent firings, the former staffers and board member said, had the potential to completely destroy the organization, which serves 15,000 patients annually. Even in states where abortion is banned, Planned Parenthood is often one of the largest providers of reproductive health; in the Southeast, PPSE has worked closely with a coalition of reproductive advocacy groups to organize communities and lobby for policies protecting access to vital services.
The PPSE personnel we spoke to described Akposé and her hires as not being aligned with Planned Parenthood’s core mission of defending abortion rights. Kaylah Oates-Marable, who was PPSE’s Georgia state director for policy advocacy until she was laid off last month, said Akposé complained at a recent meeting that “we talk about abortion too much, we focus too much on it. We have other things we could be focusing on.” Another former executive-level staffer, speaking anonymously for fear of retaliation, told us that Akposé “did not seem to understand that it was important to have medical leadership that prioritized family planning services and abortion care hand-in-hand, not just one or the other.”
In response to Mother Jones’ request for comment, Akposé noted in an emailed statement that she had taken the helm of PPSE at a time when the organization was in a “fragile” state. “My story is filled with adversities and triumphs,” she wrote. “Through it all, my faith has guided me. The same faith grounds my belief in bodily autonomy and reproductive freedom—in every person’s right to access quality, compassionate care, including abortion care, and to receive accurate information that empowers them to make the best choices for their lives.”
“Through it all, my faith has guided me. The same faith grounds my belief in bodily autonomy and reproductive freedom—in every person’s right to access quality, compassionate care, including abortion care, and to receive accurate information that empowers them to make the best choices for their lives.”
The anonymous activists, who call themselves Save PPSE, point to PPSE’s decision not to participate in Atlanta’s LGBTQ pride parade in October as an example of how the organization has shifted under Akposé and her new team. The decision was a major departure for a group that “has proudly stood in solidarity with our LGBTQ+ community, even were the Grand Marshals of the event in 2018,” the activists wrote in an Instagram post. According to staffers, PPSE’s new leadership said the organization couldn’t afford to participate and that the turmoil following the murder of Charlie Kirk made such events too dangerous.
PPSE’s current executive director, who came on in August 2025, is Karen René, a former member of the city council for the city of East Point, outside Atlanta. In 2022, when she was serving as the director of the Georgia chapter of the NAACP, René described her position on abortion in terms that now give PPSE’s staff pause. “As a Christian leader, and I am pro-life,” she told the Chicago Crusader, “but I am also pro-choice because I want to make sure that women are making the right decisions from where they stand that no one is pushing them one way or the other.” René is another one of PPSE’s top leaders who does not mention the organization on their LinkedIn pages. She did not respond to a request for comment. Akposé’s LinkedIn page has been taken down.
An important part of a reproductive leader’s role is to be a full-throated advocate, said Kimberly Inez McGuire, executive director of URGE: Unite for Reproductive & Gender Equity. “Any of us leading organizations who work on abortion need to be comfortable saying the word abortion and should be proud of what we do, because if we can’t be proud of what we do, how can we expect people to seek out the care they need?” she said. “How can we expect people to, you know, go to their state capitol and speak out? How can we expect people to fight for their rights if we’re not willing to stand up and be proud of the work that we’re doing?”
Many of the current and former staffers who spoke with Mother Jones said the recent changes to security teams and protocols were especially worrisome. “Because all of these new people have no background in repro healthcare and nonprofit work, they don’t have a fundamental, baseline understanding of messaging or funding or programmatic best practices,” said Jessica Swanson, PPSE’s former education director, who was among those laid off in September. “That was really concerning for me from a security perspective.”
Fox, the former CEO, said that when she was running the organization, “nothing was more important than security for staff and patients.” Abortion clinics—especially those in the red, southern states that PPSE served—are constantly facing threats. Fox said that while she was there, the clinic had received bomb threats and suspicious packages. Her own home had been vandalized.
PPSE’s close partners in the broader reproductive healthcare and advocacy community are worried, too. “Because we’re collaborative, we have a lot of transparency,” Danielle Rodriguez, executive director of the Amplify Georgia coalition that includes PPSE, told Mother Jones. “We had to take a step back and say, ‘Okay, we don’t know what’s going on, but what [we] do know is that we have to protect our data and our documents until we find out what is going on.’” Kwajylen Jackson, executive director of Feminist Center for Women’s Liberation, an abortion provider and advocacy organization that has worked closely with PPSE in the past, said that as of Monday, leadership there still hadn’t contacted her to explain what is happening or allay her concerns. “No one has reached out to me directly or to Feminist Center,” she said.
“We had to take a step back and say, ‘Okay, we don’t know what’s going on, but what [we] do know is that we have to protect our data and our documents until we find out what is going on.’”
The former staffers also reported being worried about the organization’s finances. Indeed, federal tax filings from the last four years show a downward trend in cash reserves—from $7.8 million in 2021 to $2.9 million in 2024. The reports also show a dramatic increase in the section of the form that shows the amount of money spent on activities and personnel not related to healthcare. Those expenses accounted for 27 percent of spending in fiscal 2024, more than double the 12 percent in 2021.
The Save PPSE activists have been critical of the organization’s large board of directors, saying it has failed to respond to staff complaints about the new leadership. The PPSE’s board issued a statement that said the organization “take[s] these allegations seriously and [has] retained a nationally recognized law firm to conduct a thorough review.” The statement said that PPSE’s clinics remain “open for business, serving the 15,000+ patients who rely on our services.” Mitchell Robinson, a PPSE board member, noted in a separate statement to Mother Jones, “PPSE continues to provide abortion care in Georgia, where it is legal, and we continue to advocate for full reproductive healthcare throughout our service area. Our Board will continue to push that mission.”
Several former staffers told Mother Jones that they reached out to Planned Parenthood Federation of America, the national group that oversees the local chapters, about the burgeoning problems at PPSE going back to last year, but heard nothing back. PPFA did not respond to Mother Jones’ request for comment. “Each Planned Parenthood local affiliate is an independent non-profit organization with its own board of directors, CEO, and staff,” vice president of communications Angela Vasquez-Giroux told the Georgia Recorder in a statement. “PPFA has no involvement in affiliate hiring or other personnel decisions. The affiliate’s independent board of directors has the sole responsibility for personnel decisions concerning an affiliate CEO or other affiliate staff.”
The sources Mother Jones spoke to traced the current state of the organization back to 2022, when leadership turnover created internal turmoil. At the time, they recalled concerns that the leadership vacuum had made the organization vulnerable to infiltration by anti-abortion activists, especially in the wake of the overturning of Roe v. Wade. The current and former staffers said that they feared that the recent upheaval could further weaken an organization that is already in a politically precarious position.
The former executive-level employee noted that without PPSE, many people would lose access to medical care beyond abortion—such as birth control, annual screenings, and more. “If Planned Parenthood Southeast as a whole goes down,” she said, “that hurts everybody that’s a client or a potential client.” The anonymous Save PPSE group wrote in an Instagram post last week, “At a moment when our rights and our lives are under attack, we should be doubling down on our commitment to patients and communities—not retreating from them.”
Correction, October 21: An earlier version of this story misstated the name of the Feminist Center for Reproductive Liberation.
This post has been syndicated from Mother Jones, where it was published under this address.