Missouri AG Bailey's endorsement of violence goes beyond his Planned Parenthood lawsuit

The court filing is appalling, the vilification tour on far-right media is worse

I have a piece in the Missouri Independent about the lawsuit Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey filed against Planned Parenthood, and why it is an endorsement of anti-abortion violence.

The only basis for Bailey’s lawsuit is a video that Project Veritas secretly filmed of a clinic worker, which ends with crosshairs and an exhortation to “Be Brave. Do Something.” I explain why his lawsuit will fail, but his legitimizing of Project Veritas’ filming and vilifying clinic workers is extremely dangerous.

What I didn’t know when I wrote that column is that, once again, Bailey’s statements in the mainstream media are mild in comparison to what he says in far-right media, where armed, anti-abortion zealots are likely to be among the audience.

Bailey has embarked on a tour of fringe media where he calls Planned Parenthood a “cult of death” and makes accusations that are too outlandish to put in a court filing, even for him.

On Elijah Haahr’s podcast, Bailey claims, “I’m not prone to hyperbole” before going on to say that Planned Parenthood is a “lawless cult of death.” He has repeated this slogan in at least six interviews, including with national cranks Tony Perkins, Sebastian Gorka, and Dana Loesch.

On air, Bailey accuses Planned Parenthood of “a criminal conspiracy” despite the fact that his nonsense lawsuit is civil, not criminal. He alleges the clinic worker says they “traffic minors out of state for illegal abortions,” though the video shows she was giving out information about how to get a legal abortion in Kansas. He accuses Planned Parenthood of “forging documents” though what is discussed in the video is a doctor’s note and there is no allegation of forgery in his lawsuit.

Bailey’s wackiest statement is that the video features not only the male actor, but also a woman purporting to be a 13-year-old girl. There is no actor playing a girl in the video. Project Veritas has not claimed there was a female actor there, and the clinic workers and the Project Veritas guy discuss the fictional girl like she isn’t there. Because she isn’t.

This can mean one of two things. Either, Bailey lacks a basic familiarity with even the edited, published video that is the only basis for his lawsuit.

Or, he just made this up. Maybe to have some evidence for the allegation—that he only makes out of court—that Planned Parenthood failed to comply with the mandatory reporting law? That’s the only guess I have as to what could possibly motivate him to add a thing that didn’t happen to a video by the thing-that-didn’t-happen experts at Project Veritas.

In the Haahr interview, Bailey goes on to share what this is really all about: the Missouri ballot initiative. “Anyone who is looking at those initiative petitions, those radical, progressive initiative petitions,” (the AG apparently didn’t get the news that there is only one petition now) “needs to understand that these two issues are linked.”

There it is. This is Bailey’s latest attempt to lie to voters and abuse the legal process because he knows he cannot win on the merits. (It’s likely also an attempt to fend off criticism from his opponent in the AG primary race, Will Scharf, with whom he is vying for the kiss from Trump.)

Bailey knows Missouri voters are ready to protect the right to abortion. He schemed as best he could to keep it off the ballot, but was ultimately scolded out of court.

There is a likelihood of heightened tensions in Missouri now that the ballot initiative is full steam ahead. Bailey’s stunt lawsuit, lies, and vilifying “death cult” rhetoric are especially irresponsible at this moment.

Missouri Right to Life has set up a hotline to call in sightings of people, like myself, who are gathering signatures to get the initiative on the ballot.

Just the announcement of the hotline is an effort to scare people away from civic engagement, but Missouri Right to Life is indeed using the hotline to track signature collectors. A friend and fellow volunteer was collecting signatures outside a library when a Missouri Right to Lifer with “decline to sign” gear showed up to yell at her and another signature collector. “It was ugly,” she told me.

My experience collecting signatures has been good. Actually, it’s been a blast. I didn’t expect approaching strangers to be a good time, but people have been vocally grateful and excited to be able to sign to overturn the abortion ban. And there’s nothing like watching someone who walked past you make a sharp turn back and say, “Yeah, I want to sign that.” I also get to meet badass fellow volunteers that I wouldn’t have otherwise. I highly recommend it.

I’m compelled to call out Andrew Bailey’s behavior because it debases our legal system, it’s dishonest, and it’s demonstrably dangerous. But I keep in mind that he wouldn’t do these things if he didn’t fear we are going to bring reproductive freedom to Missouri on his watch.