JEFFERSON CITY, Missouri (LifeSiteNews) – Missouri Republican Attorney General Andrew Bailey is taking action against Planned Parenthood for allegedly conducting chemical abortions without abiding by health and safety rules, issuing an immediate cease-and-desist and warning of future action if it is not honored.
“My understanding is that any chemically induced abortion you would perform would involve a drug or chemical satisfying the trigger in this statute,” Bailey wrote in a March 5 letter to Margot Riphagen, the head of Planned Parenthood Great Rivers-Missouri. “As you know, a court in Jackson County has preliminarily enjoined a regulation passed under this statute, but not the statute itself. Because your facility does not appear to have an approved complication plan, it is unlawful for your organization to perform any chemically induced abortions in Missouri.”
The letter warned that Bailey was considering invoking the attorney general’s statutory authority to impose a temporary restraint on such abortions, which he followed through with on March 12, noting that the abortion affiliate has “admitted under oath to ‘refusing to file required complication reports’ despite knowing they were required by law.”
“Planned Parenthood has a documented history of subverting state law, including failure to file complication reports,” Bailey said. “This cease-and-desist letter ensures that basic health and safety standards are met. Given Planned Parenthood’s history, I will continue to ensure their compliance with state law.”
“Planned Parenthood has demonstrated a disturbing pattern of performing abortions without the necessary complication plans, failing to report complications, and willfully violating state law,” he continued. “It is my duty to enforce the law and protect the lives and safety of Missourians. Missouri will not tolerate Planned Parenthood’s blatant disregard of the law and the safety of women.”
As a result, the organization cannot currently perform any chemical abortions in Missouri.
Thirteen states currently ban all or most abortions. But the abortion lobby is working feverishly to cancel out those deterrents via legal protection and financial support of interstate abortion travel, constructing new abortion facilities near borders shared by pro-life and pro-abortion states, making liberal states sanctuaries for those who want to evade or violate the laws of more pro-life neighbors, and enshrining abortion “rights” in state constitutions.
Among those tactics, easy access to and interstate distribution of abortion pills is one of the abortion lobby’s most potent tools for perpetuating abortion-on-demand post-Roe v. Wade, which they are aggressively pursuing regardless of the risks to the women they are supposedly serving.
In November 2022, Operation Rescue reported that a net decrease of 36 abortion facilities in 2022 led to the lowest number in almost 50 years, yet the chemical abortion business “surged” with 64 percent of new facilities built last year specializing in dispensing mifepristone and misoprostol. Citing data from the pro-abortion Guttmacher Institute, STAT says mifepristone “accounts for roughly half of all abortions in the U.S.”
Bailey is no stranger to taking on Planned Parenthood, having previously sued the abortion giant for facilitating minors’ out-of-state travel for abortion and investigated it for its work in underage gender “transition” treatments.
