The state of Missouri has filed a lawsuit against the nation’s foremost supplier of abortion, Planned Parenthood Federation of America, for misleading women about the safety of the abortion drug mifepristone, including claiming that it is “safer than Tylenol.” Experts are applauding the move and also urging more to be done at the federal level to restrict the drug on account of its documented dangers.
In an announcement Wednesday, Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey (R) remarked that the state is suing the abortion giant for violating the Missouri Merchandising Practices Act, which prohibits deceptive advertising for consumer goods. “The facts are clear: more than 4.5 percent of women who take this dangerous drug end up in the emergency room, yet Planned Parenthood compares it to Tylenol,” he stated. “This is a blatant violation of Missouri law, and I will not allow a death factory to lie to Missouri women in pursuit of its radical agenda.”
Studies show that at least 4.5% of women who take mifepristone experience serious adverse effects, with at least one study showing that the abortion drug causes severe health complications in 11% of women who ingest it.
Still, on a webpage entitled, “How safe is the abortion pill?” Planned Parenthood states, “Medication abortion is very safe. In fact, it’s safer than many other medicines like penicillin, Tylenol, and Viagra. Serious problems are rare, but like all medicines, there can be risks.”
In its lawsuit, Missouri is seeking over “$1.8 million in civil penalties for daily violations of Missouri law” as well as 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 “halting Planned Parenthood Federation of America from continuing to promote these falsehoods in Missouri.”
Doctors like Christina Francis, who serves as CEO of the American Association of Pro-Life Obstetricians and Gynecologists, are applauding the lawsuit in light of their experiences with caring for patients who have taken mifepristone.
“Women are taking these very high-risk drugs without realizing the true dangers that they’re facing,” she told “Washington Watch with Tony Perkins” Wednesday. “There are complications that doctors like myself are seeing on a regular basis in our emergency room, seeing women come in with heavy bleeding, infection, and many other kinds of conflicts.” She further related that complications are only increasing. “[One study] showed that one in nine women now face a serious complication after they take these drugs. And I was being interviewed by a journalist who asked me if I was surprised by that finding, and I said, ‘Actually, no, because it’s consistent with what I see.’”
David Bereit, who serves as executive director of the Life Leadership Conference, concurred, noting that since state reporting requirements for the aftereffects of the abortion pill are so spotty, data from insurance claims has to be used to accurately gauge its health effects.
“[T]hat’s where they found all these complications — 10.9% of those who take the abortion pill using the FDA’s own adverse events reports are seeing these complications,” he explained during “Washington Watch.” “… That’s why we need to champion this to Health and Human Services, to the Food and Drug Administration to make sure that they not only look and say, ‘How do we restore the regulations [repealed by the Biden administration] that were there at the beginning, but ultimately look at why was this drug approved in the first place? And now that we have more data, can it be removed from the market?”
Citing the skyrocketing number of abortions that are occurring via mifepristone, which now accounts for upwards of 63% of all abortions in the U.S. according to the most recent data from the pro-abortion Guttmacher Institute, Bereit further pointed out that state pro-life laws are being thwarted by pills being sent through the mail in violation of the Comstock Act.
“I was just recently in Des Moines, Iowa — 90% [of abortions] there are done by abortion pills, because the Iowa legislature has tried to enact protections for women and children,” he detailed. “Columbus, Ohio, it’s 85%. … [T]he pills are being mailed from all over the place with no protections. This is a health crisis. And now that we know the pill has all these additional complications and the providers don’t care about the safety and health of women, they don’t even many times require any physician contact. They don’t require any proof of pregnancy. You don’t even have to provide information saying whether you’re male or female and they’re just mailing these pills out. If you have money, they’ll send a pill.”
Francis went on to urge the FDA to take the concerning data on mifepristone seriously. “[W]e have been told that they will take a look at the data and will take that into consideration. The bottom line is the FDA right now is not doing its job when it comes to protecting women in this country.”
For now, experts like Mary Szoch, who serves as director of the Center for Human Dignity at Family Research Council, are praising Missouri for taking a step toward protecting women from the harms of the abortion drug.
“Planned Parenthood has advertised that mifepristone is as safe as Tylenol, when nothing could be further from the truth,” she told The Washington Stand. “In addition to brutally killing an unborn child, the drug carries with it significant risks to the mother — including sepsis, hemorrhage, and death. Per the FDA’s own label, it sends one in 25 women to the hospital. Yet, many women may take this drug thinking it’s just like taking a Tylenol. Instead, they find themselves bleeding alone and in excruciating pain as they deliver what Planned Parenthood promised is just a clump of cells but is clearly their visibly recognizable dead unborn baby into the toilet.”
“Planned Parenthood should be held accountable for all the damage it has done to women,” Szoch underscored. “I’m grateful the state of Missouri is working to ensure that women are protected.”
Dan Hart is senior editor for The Washington Stand, a news division of the Family Research Council.
Editor’s Note: Corruption And The Taking Of Life
Taking the lives of unborn human beings, made in the image of God, is glorified and celebrated by a large segment of our society. The rejection of God’s moral standards for sex paved the way for this startling “loss of natural affection” in our culture (2 Timothy 3:1-3)—just as it had in ancient societies that would sacrifice babies conceived from sexually depraved rituals (Deut. 12:31).
The deceit of Democrat-led Government agencies, media, schools, and entertainment has also played a key role in the abortion agenda.
Women have been told lies about the reality of life in the womb. While left-leaning groups claimed that unborn babies are merely “clumps of cells,” they also advocated for women not to be shown ultrasound images of their children prior to abortions.
Abortion pills—especially with safeguards removed—offered a perfect scenario to block women from coming to realize the human life they would be destroying. In the cases where women reconsidered their decision, Democrats also worked overtime to demonize Pro-Life groups offering women the chance to reverse the process after taking the first of the two-pill regimen.
While simultaneously convincing women that the pro-life reversal drugs were medically questionable, the FDA used corrupt means to shield the public from the dangers of abortion drugs.
Like so many other issues in our culture, this is a spiritual battle. Jesus warned that Satan is “the father of lies” and a “murderer from the beginning” (John 8:44).
The agenda pushing for abortion has been framed as a matter of “Women’s rights.” Nothing could be further from the truth. Those advocating for the murder of unborn human beings have shown their true colors. They don’t care about women—their desire is the demonic destruction of life at any cost.
