A judge ruled on Tuesday against Planned Parenthood and its request to have an alleged abortion trafficking lawsuit dismissed.
The lawsuit, filed by Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey, accuses Planned Parenthood of transporting minors across state lines for abortions based on conversations between its staff and an undercover journalist with Project Veritas (PV). Planned Parenthood Great Plains, which operates the Kansas City area facility where the video was taken, asked that Boone County Judge Brouck Jacobs dismiss the lawsuit shortly after it was filed, but Jacbos ruled it would move forward.
Late last year, a video was released showing Planned Parenthood officials in Missouri discussing abortions on young girls. The Project Veritas investigator entered the Planned Parenthood facility in Missouri inquiring about an abortion for a 13-year-old girl. He told the staff that he was not the parent of the alleged young teen and that her parents didn’t know she was pregnant or that she wanted an abortion.
Missouri law states that children 13 years old and younger cannot consent to sex with anyone, and those ages 14, 15, and 16 years old cannot consent to sex with someone who is more than four years older. In addition, Missouri law states that no minor may consent to an abortion. Planned Parenthood was required to report the sexual abuse of this 13-year-old girl, but instead, offered to get her across state lines to Kansas for an abortion, potentially aiding her abuser. In Kansas, the age of consent to sex is 16 and parental consent is required for a minor to undergo an abortion.
Still, the abortion giant offered to help get the girl to Kansas for an abortion, without parental consent. The staffer then said she would help the investigator get a judicial bypass to avoid the law.
PV Investigator: What is a bypass?
PP Staffer: Just not letting the parents know.
PV Investigator: So, I can bring her?”
PP Staffer: Yeah. You just have to — when you call — Just tell them the situation, they’ll walk you through everything.
PV Investigator: So, if I can’t do it, is there a service that can get her across a state line?
PP Staffer: Yeah. Yup… They have people that’ll come pick them up.
Planned Parenthood staff even said they could obtain an excused absence from school for the girl. “We could give the doctor’s note to where the school, it doesn’t matter if the school agrees or not, we say that she was at the doctor, they have to take it,” the staffer said, adding that “we can cut off our letterhead so it doesn’t even say where she was. Trust me this is not their first rodeo. They’re going to know exactly how to handle that.”
Additionally, the staffer said Planned Parenthood would potentially pay for everything — the abortion procedure, the travel, everything. The investigator then asked how often Planned Parenthood arranges travel for abortion across state lines. “Oh. Every day. Every day,” the staffer said, adding, “We can set up hotels for them. We set up every day. Every day.”
Furthermore, the staffer said Planned Parenthood intentionally leaves parents out of the conversation. “In Planned Parenthood we consider you [a 13-year-old child] an adult… You can make the decision, then we got you,” the staffer said. “We never tell the parents anything, she’s an adult in our clinics.” She is not an adult by law.
READ: ‘We never tell’: Planned Parenthood helping minors travel ‘every day’ for abortions
In addition to the alleged abortion trafficking, Bailey has pointed out that Planned Parenthood Great Plains has had numerous health code violations, including a facility in Columbia admitting to using moldy equipment on patients for months and refusing to comply with numerous state laws.
Bailey has since called for Planned Parenthood to be defunded in Missouri and said they should be ready to “pack their bag.” He also filed a lawsuit over the video exposing Planned Parenthood’s alleged abortion trafficking of minors across state lines. In its response, the abortion corporation asked for Bailey’s lawsuit to be dismissed.
“There is no allegation that any child, any minor, has been taken across state lines,” Planned Parenthood attorney John Andrew Hirth told Judge Jacobs. “There’s no allegation that any abortion has been performed here in Missouri or outside Missouri, with or without parental consent. The whole conversation is hypothetical.”
Judge Jacobs, however, found merit in moving the case forward, a decision which Bailey celebrated in a press release. “The Court has cleared the way for my lawsuit against Planned Parenthood to move forward. Planned Parenthood has a long history of blatantly violating state law at the expense of both women and children,” he said. “I will not sit idly by while bad actors traffic minors out of state to obtain abortions without parental consent. This is the beginning of the end for Planned Parenthood in the State of Missouri.”
