Pro-life bill heads to Senate; Mo. Attorney General files suit against Planned Parenthood
EDITOR’S NOTE: This article was updated, March 6, to include comments from Missouri Baptist Convention legislative liaison Timothy Faber.
JEFFERSON CITY – In a 104-49 vote, the Missouri House of Representatives chose to defund Planned Parenthood, March 4, less than a week after Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey filed suit “against Planned Parenthood for trafficking minors out of state to obtain abortions without parental consent.”
Though the bill (HB2634) doesn’t specify Planned Parenthood, it does include all abortion providers and their affiliates.
During floor debate in the House, Feb. 28, bill sponsor Rep. Cody Smith (R-Carthage) said, “When you do business with an entity like a Planned Parenthood, you’re ultimately subsidizing those abortion services, even if they are in other states.”
The House’s bill defunding Planned Parenthood now heads to the Missouri Senate for consideration.
Timothy Faber, legislative liaison for the Missouri Baptist Convention, highlighted the significance of the House’s action.
“There are those who wonder why a bill like HB2634 even matters,” Faber said. “After all, isn’t abortion already illegal in Missouri? To that I would respond that this bill prohibits funding even for organizations that cross state lines and provide or are affiliated with abortion providers in other states. For instance, though Planned Parenthood cannot legally perform abortions in Missouri, they have been referring clients to Planned Parenthood clinics in Illinois, Kansas, and other places. This bill would prohibit public funds from going to Planned Parenthood because they are affiliated with abortion providers in other places. Ideally, Planned Parenthood would stop doing abortions altogether, and if they do, they could have their funding restored. But otherwise, they cannot use your tax money and my tax money to advocate for abortion. The same applies to other organizations that are affiliated with any abortion provider, not just Planned Parenthood.
“When I say ‘advocate for abortion’ above,” Faber added, “what I mean is that currently, Planned Parenthood and other abortion providers and their affiliates are currently receiving taxpayer money, and using that money to campaign for passing a constitutional amendment to legalize abortion in Missouri. They use that money also for seeking to overturn our statutory prohibitions on abortion. Forcing people to fund others who would advocate against them and their views is a gross violation of conscience and a grave injustice to the American way.”
Early last month, the Missouri Supreme Court ruled that a previous effort to cut Planned Parenthood out of the state’s 2022 budget was unconstitutional – prompting need for House’s latest efforts to defund Planned Parenthood.
A recent expose also boosted the eagerness of Missouri’s pro-life lawmakers to pass this bill. Late last year, in an investigative video released by The Veritas Project, a Planned Parenthood director in Kansas City, Mo., admitted that they bypass Missouri law by sending patients to Kansas to receive abortions “every day.” In the video, Planned Parenthood staff offered to help a 13-year-old girl get an abortion in Kansas, giving assurance that they “never tell the parents anything.”
Missouri became the first state to ban abortion in 2022 after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade.
In the wake of The Veritas Project investigation, Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey filed suit against Planned Parenthood, Feb. 29. Bailey announced the suit in a social media post on X (formerly Twitter). “Today,” he wrote, “I am filing suit against Planned Parenthood for trafficking minors out of state to obtain abortions without parental consent.”
Bailey told The Pathway, Feb. 29, “In the (Veritas Project) video, an agent is seen bragging about concealing abortions from children’s parents, is bragging about deceiving schools and courts using forged documents, and expresses a willingness to conceal a sexual offense against a minor – despite the fact that the clinic is a mandatory reporter under state statute. Then she brags about taking minors across state lines all the time, and opines that it’s the habit, routine and custom, of Planned Parenthood.
“This is a consistent pattern of behavior (for Planned Parenthood),” Bailey added, “going all the way back to 2018, when an investigation revealed a half decade of violations – including physicians’ failure to file reports concerning medical complications and the use of a moldy abortion machine. … So when I say that this is consistent pattern of behavior, it has to be put in that kind of historical context. Planned Parenthood is a cult of death that refuses to obey state law.”
The lawsuit is the “first in a sequence events designed and intended to drive this lawless cause of death from the state of Missouri once and for all,” Bailey said. “We intend to fight it out as long as it takes. This should be the beginning of the end of Planned Parenthood in Missouri.”
The MBC’s Faber applauded the Attorney General “for filing a lawsuit against Planned Parenthood for their arrogant and blatant practice of transporting minors across state lines without parental consent for commercial gain.
“Many would assume it is allowed and wouldn’t bother,” Faber added. “But criminality is never corralled or corrected unless it is confronted. Evil is never eradicated until it is first exposed. Mr. Bailey is to be commended for taking this fight to the courts, exposing and confronting those who hide their agenda of death behind a façade of healthcare.”