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Mifepristone tablets at a Planned Parenthood clinic, July 18, 2024, in Ames, Iowa. <\/span>AP Photo\/Charlie Neibergall, File<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n In anti-abortion Republicans\u2019 <\/span>latest attack on abortion pills<\/a>, Florida\u2019s attorney general is suing<\/a> Planned Parenthood for allegedly misrepresenting the safety of the drugs\u2014despite the fact that more than 100 scientific studies<\/a> have shown they are safe and effective.<\/p>\n The 37-page lawsuit<\/a>, announced<\/a> by Attorney General James Uthmeier\u2019s office on Thursday and filed in Florida\u2019s First Judicial Circuit Court, alleges that Planned Parenthood \u201csells profitable abortions to vulnerable women by lying to them about abortion pills being safer than Tylenol.\u201d Experts routinely make<\/a> the comparison that use of the abortion pills\u2014which include mifepristone, which blocks the pregnancy hormone progesterone, and misoprostol, which expels the pregnancy\u2014are safer than Tylenol or even full-term pregnancy. Research shows<\/a> that serious complications from medication abortion occur in less than half a percent<\/em> of cases. <\/p>\n The Florida lawsuit claims that all abortions \u201cviolate the Hippocratic Oath and deny the inalienable rights of all human beings.\u201d <\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/figure>\n But Uthmeier\u2019s lawsuit paints a far more dire picture. It\u2019s riddled with familiar anti-abortion arguments and misinformation. For example, it cites openly anti-abortion sources, including the anti-abortion group Live Action<\/a>, as well as a non-peer reviewed report<\/a> from the right-wing Ethics and Public Policy Center that claimed to show higher rates of complication from the pills, but that experts say<\/a> has a flawed methodology, as I have previously written<\/a>. The Florida lawsuit also claims that all abortions \u201cviolate the Hippocratic Oath and deny the inalienable rights of all human beings.\u201d Uthmeier is suing under the state\u2019s deceptive marketing and racketeering laws, and is seeking more than $350 million in damages, attorneys\u2019 fees, the dissolution of Planned Parenthood in Florida, and the revocation of its state licenses. <\/p>\n Spokespeople for Planned Parenthood did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Mother Jones<\/em> on Sunday, but in a statement provided<\/a> to the Associated Press, Susan Baker Manning, general counsel for the Planned Parenthood Federation of America, said: \u201cAnti-abortion lawmakers and officials are relentless in their effort to end access to all abortion care, and to stop patients from getting accurate medical information. We will continue to be just as relentless in our effort to defend access to this safe, effective care. See you in court.\u201d Alexandra Mandado, the president and CEO of Planned Parenthood of Florida, told<\/a> the Tampa Bay Times<\/em> the lawsuit is \u201ca politically motivated attack\u201d and an \u201cattempt to erode access to all abortion care.\u201d<\/p>\n Abortion is banned in Florida after six weeks of pregnancy, but telehealth abortion providers have continued<\/a> prescribing and mailing abortion pills into Florida and other states with bans. More than 70 percent of reproductive age women in the state believe abortion should be legal in all or most cases, including a majority of Republicans, KFF, the group formerly known as Kaiser Family Foundation, found<\/a> last year. After the Supreme Court overruled<\/a> Roe v. Wade<\/em> in June 2022, use of abortion pills drastically increased nationwide, and they now\u00a0account<\/a>\u00a0for more than 60 percent of all abortions. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA)\u00a0permits<\/a> use of mifepristone to end a pregnancy through\u00a0<\/strong>ten weeks\u2019 gestation, but abortion advocates say it is safe and effective later as well; the World Health Organization\u00a0says<\/a>, for example, that\u00a0it can be used anytime in the first trimester.<\/p>\n But as the pills\u2019 popularity has increased, so have the coordinated attacks, as I wrote back in September<\/a>:<\/p>\n Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and FDA Commissioner Marty Makary\u00a0announced<\/a>\u00a0that HHS would conduct a new review of mifepristone, after hinting they would do so back in May,\u00a0as I reported at the time<\/a>. In their announcement, which\u00a0reportedly<\/a>\u00a0came as a response to a letter Republican attorneys general wrote to Kennedy and Makary back in July, the officials cited a report produced by the Ethics and Public Policy Center, a right-wing organization that was on the advisory board of Project 2025, which\u00a0claims<\/a>\u00a0to have unearthed a higher-than-previously-reported rate of complications from the pills.<\/p>\n [\u2026]<\/p>\n As my colleague Madison Pauly and I\u00a0reported<\/a>\u00a0back in January, anti-abortion groups sent letters to the\u00a0Department of Justice<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0FDA<\/a>\u00a0requesting they roll back access to medication abortion by enforcing the 19th-century anti-obscenity\u00a0Comstock Act<\/a>, restoring the seven-week gestational limit, and rescinding the Biden-era telehealth regulation. Project 2025, the lengthy playbook for Trump\u2019s second term, also\u00a0recommended<\/a>\u00a0the DOJ enforce the dormant Comstock Act to ban the mailing of abortion pills, though President Donald Trump\u00a0claimed<\/a>\u00a0<\/strong>last year that it was \u201cvery unlikely\u201d the FDA would roll back access or\u00a0that<\/a>\u00a0the DOJ would enforce Comstock.<\/p>\n In 2022, an anti-abortion group calling itself the Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine\u00a0sued<\/a>\u00a0in Texas, challenging the FDA\u2019s initial approval of mifepristone as well as the agency\u2019s later moves to expand access. The Supreme Court\u00a0rejected<\/a>\u00a0the suit last year, saying the anti-abortion medical providers didn\u2019t have standing to bring it. But attorneys general in at least six red states, including\u00a0Texas and Florida<\/a>, have since\u00a0intervened<\/a>\u00a0in a bid to revive the case. Other\u00a0suits<\/a>\u00a0are trying to curtail access by claiming mifepristone could contaminate drinking water.<\/p>\n There have also been myriad efforts to limit and penalize access at the state level. Last year, Louisiana\u00a0became<\/a>\u00a0the first state to classify mifepristone and misoprostol as controlled substances, a move that one doctor predicted\u00a0would<\/a>\u00a0also impact non-abortion-related care, including postpartum hemorrhages and IUD insertions. This month, Texas\u00a0enacted<\/a>\u00a0a radical bill that allows allows private citizens to sue anyone who \u201cmanufactures, distributes, mails, transports, delivers, prescribes, or provides\u201d abortion pills to Texans for at least $100,000. Officials in Texas and Louisiana have\u00a0sought to punish<\/a>\u00a0doctors in\u00a0New York<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0California<\/a>\u00a0who mailed abortion pills into their states under shield laws.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote><\/div>\n\n
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