Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey has signaled to Planned Parenthood that it is time for them to “pack their bags,” because in his words, “enough is enough.”
The AG has accused Planned Parenthood in Missouri of multiple “statutory violations” — including health code violations, failure to comply with statutory requirements on filing reports, and the “traffic[king of] minors across state lines for abortions,” among other infractions.
As a result, the AG is seeking to have Planned Parenthood defunded.
Missouri Attorney General March 6, 2024 letter calling for defunding of Planned Parenthood
Request to Defund Planned Parenthood
The Attorney General of Missouri’s March 6, 2024 letter addressed to Robert Knodell, director of Missouri Department of Social Services, is calling for Planned Parenthood to be defunded for what he described as a “pattern of activity, as well as other lawbreaking” which “justifies terminating Planned Parenthood from participation in the MO HealthNet program.”
The AG’s press release summarized a host of “statutory violations” as follows:
- In 2018, following at least a half-decade of health-code violations, Planned Parenthood’s facility in Columbia was shut down after staff admitted to having used moldy abortion equipment on women for months.
- Also in 2018, Planned Parenthood physicians conceded in open court that, for at least 15 years, the organization failed to comply with state law requiring physicians performing abortions to file reports when women experience medical complications from abortions.
- In 2020, the Administrative Hearing Commission determined that even though Missouri law at the time required that the same physician who performs an abortion be the one to notify the woman of the risks of abortion, physicians at Planned Parenthood were not doing so.
BREAKING: I am calling for the end of taxpayer funding to Planned Parenthood in the State of Missouri.
Our lawsuit exposed Planned Parenthood’s history of violating state law and putting Missourians at risk.
It’s time to hold them accountable. pic.twitter.com/NZzp0pXfge
— Attorney General Andrew Bailey (@AGAndrewBailey) March 6, 2024
Live Action News has documented multiple times how abuses, scandals, fraud, racism, pregnancy discrimination, privacy breaches, and Medicaid fraud have piled up against Planned Parenthood — yet the U.S. government under the Biden Administration continues to funnel millions in taxpayer dollars to the organization.
In 2022, the State of Texas filed a federal lawsuit claiming “Planned Parenthood improperly billed Medicaid for $10 million in payments during the period when the state was trying to remove the organization from the program,” the Texas Tribune reported. The State is seeking more than $1.8 billion in reimbursement, penalties, and fees.
Planned Parenthood requested that U.S. District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk dismiss the lawsuit, but he denied the request and has instead scheduled the case to be heard in April of this year.
Live Action News continues to document how Planned Parenthood has been implicated for financial mismanagement — and has faced allegations of Medicaid fraud — multiple times (read more here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here.)
The Office of Inspector General (OIG) website highlights several instances:
- 2017: PP Great Plains and Comprehensive Health of Planned Parenthood Great Plains paid $18,808.92 for allegedly violating the Civil Monetary Penalties Law.
- 2016: PP Health Systems, Inc. in North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia, and West Virginia, agreed to pay $1,572,752.80 for allegedly violating the Civil Monetary Penalties Law.
- 2015: Texas Health and Human Services Commission claimed that PP of North Texas owed Medicaid reimbursement of at least $129,000 for family planning services provided by PP of North Texas that did not comply with Federal and State Medicaid requirements.
- 2013: PP Gulf Coast in Houston paid $4.3 million to resolve civil claims that it billed for items and services related to birth control counseling, STD testing, and contraceptives when they were not medically necessary or were not provided, read more at the US Attorney General’s website.
- 2013: Separately, PP Gulf Coast agreed to pay $1.4 million in a Texas Medicaid billing fraud case.
In addition, Planned Parenthood facilities across the nation have also been cited for health code violations.
Trafficking Minors Across State Lines
The AG’s letter also stated that, “Last week, I sued Planned Parenthood after an undercover reporter caught its staff admitting that they traffic minors across state lines for abortions—without parental consent—and that they do this ‘every day.'”
The lawsuit alleged in part:
“Planned Parenthood’s most recent troubling activity was captured on video, where Planned Parenthood staff admitted they traffic minors across state lines to perform abortions on them without parental consent. Worse, they admit doing this ‘every day, every day, every day.'”
“The surreptitiously recorded video revealed that Planned Parenthood removes minors from school using altered doctors’ notes, transports them into Kansas for abortions, and then quickly returns them—all to avoid parents finding out.
“This violates Missouri law, which recognizes that ‘permitting a child to obtain an abortion without the counsel of’ a parent, Planned Parenthood of Cent. Missouri v. Danforth, 428 U.S. 52, 72 (1976), would violate fundamental parental rights that are ‘deeply rooted in our Nation’s history and tradition…'”
Live Action News previously reviewed the five-minute undercover video (part one of a two-part investigation, see above) by Project Veritas (PV), showing Planned Parenthood allegedly caught on camera and revealing its willingness to assist a 13-year-old minor in crossing state lines to undergo an abortion without parental knowledge or consent, a term dubbed by some as abortion trafficking. The investigation took place in Missouri, where the state law says 13-year-olds can never consent to sex or abortions.
“That conduct not only blatantly violates § 188.250, which prohibits facilitating a minor to obtain an abortion without parental consent, but it also strongly suggests that Planned Parenthood is violating laws that require it to report crimes like statutory rape,” Bailey wrote on his release.
Covering Child Sexual Abuse
Live Action News has documented Planned Parenthood’s willingness to aid sex traffickers, willingness to commit sex-selective abortions, and much more. All of these should disqualify Planned Parenthood from receiving federal funding.
Recently, Karl Eastlund, CEO of Planned Parenthood of Greater Washington and North Idaho (PPGWNI), told PBS Newshour that teens who are sexually abused often come to Planned Parenthood, and some travel from out of state.
“We often get teenagers coming here, who are 15 weeks pregnant, 20 weeks pregnant, farther along in the pregnancy than they ever imagined – they didn’t even know they were pregnant many of them – because of abuse, and it’s abuse in the home. We are talking about sexual abuse and incest, which is unfortunately a reason many teenagers have to seek abortion,” Eastlund said.
While Eastlund cited no evidence for his claim, Live Action’s Aiding Abusers investigation has demolished the pro-abortion media’s illusion that Big Abortion is a trusted source for sexually abused minors by documenting how Planned Parenthood and the wider abortion industry has covered for child sexual abusers.
Live Action’s Aiding Abusers investigative report and docuseries includes actual criminal cases and testimony from the attorney of two victims, and exposed how Planned Parenthood covers up child sexual abuse. Additional Live Action undercover investigative videos documented Planned Parenthood employees at 15 different facilities showing a willingness to cover up child sexual abuse and child sex trafficking.
A few examples featured in Live Action’s Aiding Abusers Report:
- Denise Fairbanks had been sexually abused by her father since she was 13. When she became pregnant at age 16, he forced her to have an abortion at Planned Parenthood. Although she told the staff that he was raping her, they refused to report the incident. Instead, they sent her home with him, where he continued to abuse her for another year and a half.
- George Savanah had repeatedly raped his daughter and impregnated her when she was 14, 16, and 17 years old, each time taking her to Planned Parenthood and forcing her to get an abortion. Planned Parenthood neglected to report any of the three suspicious incidents to authorities.
- Timothy David Smith had sexually abused his stepdaughter for seven years and took her to Planned Parenthood when she became pregnant at 13. Planned Parenthood committed an abortion without notifying her parents and without reporting the suspected abuse to authorities as required by Colorado law.
- Planned Parenthood performed an abortion on a 12 year-old at the request of her 23-year-old foster brother, who was also her abuser. Shawn Michael Stevens took her home afterwards and continued to rape her. Planned Parenthood not only neglected to notify authorities but also failed to notify the victim’s foster parents that they were going to perform the abortion.
Live Action News has documented multiple criminal cases in which sexually abused teens were taken to abortion businesses and Planned Parenthood facilities — sometimes out of state — to cover the crime of rape and documented individual predatory sexual abuse and harassment allegations among staffers associated with the abortion industry.
Today, Planned Parenthood remains the largest abortion corporation in the nation, ending the lives of over 1,025 preborn babies every single day — nearly 43 per hour, and one every 84 seconds. In addition, the organization is one of the top providers of “transgender care,” promoting and benefiting from this ideology as their latest “cash cow.”
Missouri AG to Planned Parenthood enough is enough (Image: Twitter “X”)
“Planned Parenthood’s most vigorous defense of its actions so far is that their conduct is legal in other States. But what matters, of course, is whether Planned Parenthood has violated Missouri law. They have. And your agency can terminate their participation agreement for that reason,” the Missouri Attorney General wrote in the letter.
