By: Jacob Richey
Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey is suing the national Planned Parenthood organization over its claims regarding the abortion drug mifepristone.
Bailey filed the lawsuit against the Planned Parenthood Federation of America on Wednesday in Cole County Circuit Court.
The lawsuit argues Planned Parenthood’s national organization has misled consumers about the safety of mifepristone, which is used in a regimen with another drug to expel a pregnancy.
The lawsuit seeks more than $1.8 million in civil penalties, up to $1,000 in damages or restitution for every Missouri woman Planned Parenthood provided abortion pills to in the past five years, reimbursement to the state for Medicaid and other taxpayer-funded emergency care resulting from abortion pill complications, and a court order for Planned Parenthood to stop certain advertisements for mifepristone.
Mifepristone is a drug used for medication abortions. Planned Parenthood says the drug is safe and effective, but Bailey points to a small percentage of patients who need emergency care after having a medication abortion.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration information and label for the medication says it can cause serious and sometimes fatal infections or bleeding, but that label also says U.S. clinical studies found serious adverse effects in less than 0.5% of patients.
Bailey’s lawsuit points to that label, along with other studies that say 4.6% of women who undergo a medication abortion may need emergency care after the procedure.
The lawsuit takes aim at Planned Parenthood’s comparison between mifepristone and other common medications like Tylenol, penicillin and Viagra. An archived page from Planned Parenthood’s website, which is linked in the lawsuit, said medication abortions are safer than those over-the-counter drugs.
The lawsuit says that claim is misleading, if not false, for reasons including the abortion pill and the other drugs having different uses.
While Bailey’s lawsuit doesn’t directly target Missouri’s Planned Parenthood affiliates, the lawsuit says Planned Parenthood’s advertisements for the abortion pill directs consumers to Missouri’s Planned Parenthood locations.
Medication abortions are not currently available at Missouri Planned Parenthood locations. Planned Parenthood Great Plains President and CEO Emily Wales said in a March statement that the abortion pill hasn’t been available in Missouri since 2018. Bailey’s lawsuit concerns medication abortions women from Missouri have undergone since 2020.
Since the lawsuit does not target abortions performed in Missouri, but abortions Missouri women have received, it applies to out-of-state medication abortions.
In the roughly two and a half years between the overturning of Roe v. Wade and abortions becoming available in Missouri again, Missouri residents had to go to other states like Kansas or Illinois, where abortion was legal, to obtain medication abortions.
“Planned Parenthood’s false advertising has a national reach,” Bailey said in a press release, “including targeted claims against Missouri women.”
This story originally appeared in the Columbia Missourian. It can be republished in print or online.