Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey has filed a lawsuit against Planned Parenthood Great Plains, alleging that the organization is trafficking minors to other states to facilitate abortions without the consent of their parents.
“This is the beginning of the end for Planned Parenthood in the State of Missouri,” Mr. Bailey said in a statement to announce the lawsuit. “What they conceal and conspire to do in the dark of night has now been uncovered. I am filing suit to ensure it never happens again.”
Mr. Bailey referenced his own experience of holding his infant daughter, who lived for only one hour after birth, as part of his motivation for protecting unborn babies.
“Our children are the future,” he said. “It is time to eradicate Planned Parenthood once and for all to end this pattern of abhorrent, unethical, and illegal behavior.”
Abortions Without Parental Consent
Missouri is one of several states that had “trigger laws” on the books that automatically banned or restricted abortion procedures after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022, allowing states to regulate their own abortion laws.
In the undercover video, staff said they could provide a doctor’s note for the minor to be excused from school and could remove the Planned Parenthood letterhead from the note “so it doesn’t even say where she was.” Staff also acknowledged setting up hotel stays for the minors and treating them as if they were adults in the clinic.
Mr. Bailey cited state law prohibiting the aiding of a minor to get an abortion without parental consent.
“Violating the ‘deeply rooted’ right of parents and the laws of Missouri, Planned Parenthood is inducing minors into making life-changing—and life-ending—decisions without parental consent,” the lawsuit says.
Planned Parenthood Great Plains has engaged in paying for abortions for minors and paying for their transportation and lodging out of state to have abortions, the lawsuit says.
Health and Safety Violations
The lawsuit also states that Planned Parenthood has a pattern of citations for several health code violations and failure to comply with the law.In 2018, a Planned Parenthood facility in Columbia, Missouri, was closed after staff “admitted to using moldy abortion equipment on women,” the complaint says.
“At the time, the clinic performed ‘an average of 14 cases per month’ ... meaning that this moldy equipment had been used on potentially as many as 40 or more women,” the lawsuit says. “The health department was forced to shut the clinic down.”
In addition, the organization admitted in court that physicians were refusing to file reports when women experienced medical complications from the abortion procedures.
“They refused because they did not expect the state to enforce the law,” the lawsuit says.
The Missouri Administrative Hearing Commission in 2020 found that physicians were failing to notify women of the risks of an abortion, which was required by law, according to Mr. Bailey.
“This requirement promoted continuity of care and was consistent with standard practice of elective surgeries, where the same physician who is going to perform the elective surgery meets with the patient beforehand to discuss the risks and benefits,” the lawsuit says. “Planned Parenthood’s physicians did not follow this requirement.”
Mr. Bailey referenced an incident in which a physician “did not stay in the room” for an abortion, leaving the patient to undergo an “incomplete abortion,” which caused her to have to return a month later for a “second surgical abortion.”
Planned Parenthood didn’t respond by press time to a request by The Epoch Times for comment.
