The attorney general of Missouri is suing Planned Parenthood, the largest abortion provider in the United States, for “trafficking 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,” Attorney General Andrew Bailey said in a statement posted on X, formerly known as Twitter. “This lawsuit is the culmination of a multiyear campaign to drive Planned Parenthood from the State of Missouri because of its flagrant and intentional refusal to comply with state law.”

Bailey is seeking a court order to block Planned Parenthood Great Plains from taking children out of state to get abortions without their parents’ knowledge. The suit accuses the organization of showing a pattern of statutory violations, noting that in 2018, Planned Parenthood’s facility in Columbia, Missouri, was shut down when staff admitted to using “moldy abortion equipment for months.”

The lawsuit also highlights that Planned Parenthood physicians admitted in court in 2018 that for the prior 15 years, they had failed to comply with the state’s laws requiring abortionists to file reports when mothers undergoing abortions experienced medical complications.

“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,” the suit says. “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,” the lawsuit continues.

Such actions are a violation of Missouri law, which recognizes that allowing a child to undergo an abortion without parental consent would “violate fundamental human rights that are ‘deeply rooted in our Nation’s history and tradition,’” the lawsuit says.

“Missouri law prohibits elective abortion, but Missouri law also forbids any person to ‘intentionally cause, aid, or assist a minor to obtain an abortion without [parental] consent’ or informed consent, even if the abortion occurs in another ‘state or place,’” the suit says. “Yet that is exactly what video evidence shows Planned Parenthood is doing. Violating the ‘deeply rooted’ right of parents and the laws of Missouri, Planned Parenthood is inducing minors into making life-changing—and life-ending—decisions without parental consent.”

The undercover video referred to in the lawsuit is the product of a Project Veritas investigation done in November 2023. That investigation involved one of the organization’s members posing as the older uncle of a 13-year-old who wanted the 13-year-old to abort her unborn baby “quickly and secretly.”

“The clinic manager appears [unfazed] by this scenario and extremely helpful,” Project Veritas said in a release about the investigation. “She tells the journalist, ‘In Planned Parenthood, we consider you an adult, you can make the decision, then we’ve got you … . We never tell the parents anything.’”

Project Veritas alleges that the clinic’s “casual admission of its willingness to perform secret abortions on minors and subvert parental consent raises concern for other ways Planned Parenthood’s ‘bypass’ system could be utilized to exploit and conceal the sexual abuse of children.”

Planned Parenthood did not immediately respond to requests for comment from The Daily Signal.

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