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**In Anti-Abortion Republicans’ Latest Attack on Abortion Pills, Florida’s Attorney General Sues Planned Parenthood**
Florida’s Attorney General James Uthmeier is suing Planned Parenthood for allegedly misrepresenting the safety of abortion pills — despite more than 100 scientific studies confirming that these drugs are safe and effective.
The 37-page lawsuit, filed in Florida’s First Judicial Circuit Court and announced on Thursday, claims that Planned Parenthood “sells profitable abortions to vulnerable women by lying to them about abortion pills being safer than Tylenol.” Medical experts often compare the safety of medication abortion pills—which include mifepristone, blocking the pregnancy hormone progesterone, and misoprostol, which expels the pregnancy—as safer than taking Tylenol or even carrying a pregnancy to full term.
Research demonstrates that serious complications from medication abortion occur in less than half a percent of cases. However, the lawsuit paints a far more alarming and misleading picture, riddled with familiar anti-abortion arguments and misinformation.
For example, it cites openly anti-abortion sources, such as the group Live Action, as well as a non-peer-reviewed report from the right-wing Ethics and Public Policy Center. This report claimed higher complication rates from abortion pills, but experts have criticized its flawed methodology.
The Florida lawsuit further asserts that all abortions “violate the Hippocratic Oath and deny the inalienable rights of all human beings.”
Uthmeier is suing under the state’s deceptive marketing and racketeering laws, seeking more than $350 million in damages, attorneys’ fees, the dissolution of Planned Parenthood in Florida, and the revocation of its state licenses.
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**Planned Parenthood Responds**
Spokespeople for Planned Parenthood did not immediately respond to requests for comment from Mother Jones on Sunday. However, Susan Baker Manning, general counsel for the Planned Parenthood Federation of America, provided a statement to the Associated Press:
“Anti-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.”
Alexandra Mandado, president and CEO of Planned Parenthood of Florida, called the lawsuit “a politically motivated attack” and “an attempt to erode access to all abortion care” in comments to the *Tampa Bay Times*.
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**The Context: Abortion Access and Telehealth in Florida**
Abortion in Florida is banned after six weeks of pregnancy. Nonetheless, telehealth abortion providers have continued prescribing and mailing abortion pills into Florida and other states with similar bans.
A Kaiser Family Foundation survey last year found that more than 70 percent of women of reproductive age in Florida believe abortion should be legal in all or most cases — including a majority of Republicans.
Since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in June 2022, the use of abortion pills has drastically increased nationwide. These pills now account for more than 60 percent of all abortions.
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) permits the use of mifepristone to terminate pregnancy through ten weeks’ gestation, while abortion advocates and the World Health Organization say the pills are safe and effective throughout the first trimester and beyond.
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**Coordinated Attacks on Medication Abortion**
As the popularity of abortion pills has grown, so have coordinated attacks against them.
In September, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and FDA Commissioner Marty Makary announced that HHS would conduct a new review of mifepristone. This announcement came in response to a July letter from Republican attorneys general citing a report from the Ethics and Public Policy Center, which alleged higher complication rates from the pills.
In January, anti-abortion groups sent letters to the Department of Justice and FDA urging them to roll back access to medication abortion. Their requests included enforcing the 19th-century anti-obscenity Comstock Act, restoring the seven-week gestational limit, and rescinding Biden-era telehealth regulations.
Project 2025, a policy playbook for a potential second Trump term, also recommended enforcing the dormant Comstock Act to ban mailing abortion pills—though Trump himself said last year that it was “very unlikely” the FDA would roll back access or that DOJ would enforce Comstock.
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**Legal Challenges and State-Level Restrictions**
In 2022, the anti-abortion group Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine sued in Texas, challenging the FDA’s approval of mifepristone and the agency’s later moves to expand access. The Supreme Court rejected this suit on standing grounds, but attorneys general in at least six red states, including Texas and Florida, have intervened to revive the case.
Other lawsuits attempt to limit access by claiming mifepristone could contaminate drinking water. Numerous state-level efforts seek to penalize and restrict access to abortion pills.
Last year, Louisiana became the first state to classify mifepristone and misoprostol as controlled substances. Medical professionals warn this could negatively impact non-abortion-related care, including treatments for postpartum hemorrhages and IUD insertions.
This month, Texas enacted a controversial law allowing private citizens to sue anyone who “manufactures, distributes, mails, transports, delivers, prescribes, or provides” abortion pills to Texans—for at least $100,000 per lawsuit.
Officials in Texas and Louisiana have also targeted doctors in New York and California who mail abortion pills into their states under shield laws.
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The battle over medication abortion continues to intensify as political and legal challenges mount against access to these safe and effective reproductive healthcare options.
https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2025/11/florida-takes-on-planned-parenthood/
