EXCLUSIVE: Records Reveal Planned Parenthood’s 14-Point Post-Dobbs Strategy for State AGs to Target Pro-Lifers

A month after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, Planned Parenthood issued marching orders for state attorneys general to target crisis pregnancy centers and issue abortion-friendly legal opinions.

State actions after the July 12, 2022, memo suggest Democrat attorneys general followed much of the 14-point plan pushed by the nation’s largest abortion provider.

On July 25, 2022, Brittany Jenkins, policy director of the Progressive State Leaders Committee, forwarded a Planned Parenthood memo to attorneys general and their staff, according to documents obtained by the Daily Signal. Jenkins informed them that Rachel Sussman, vice president of state policy for Planned Parenthood, was set to brief them the next day “to continue our discussion of continued actions AGs can take in response to the Dobbs decision.”

The memo claimed that pro-life crisis pregnancy centers, which provide care, food, clothing, and shelter to expecting mothers while trying to steer them away from abortion, are promoting “misinformation.”

“Provide information to the public about CPCs and take steps to curb their misleading and deceptive practices. For example, CA issued a Consumer Alert,” the Planned Parenthood memo says, referring to California. It also called for attorneys general to ask the Federal Trade Commission to “target misinformation perpetuated by crisis pregnancy centers regarding medication abortion.”

Less than a month later, Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison issued a “consumer alert” about crisis pregnancy centers because, he said, “pregnant people” should have accurate information.

In December 2022, New Jersey Attorney General Matthew Platkin also issued a consumer alert and went even further, later issuing a subpoena to First Choice, a crisis pregnancy center, that demanded the names, phone numbers, addresses, and places of employment of all individual contributors. The U.S. Supreme Court unanimously held in April of this year that donors have a First Amendment right to contribute anonymously.

California Attorney General Rob Bonta, whom Planned Parenthood had already pointed to as an example, sued several crisis pregnancy centers in his state. In October 2023, Bonta led 15 other Democrat counterparts in an open letter opposing the crisis pregnancy centers.

“We have watched with increasing concern in recent years as anti-abortion crisis pregnancy centers (CPCs) have proliferated in our states, outnumbering abortion clinics by a three-to-one ratio,” the open letter said.

This past April, the U.S. Justice Department released an 882-page report detailing how President Joe Biden’s administration coordinated with major abortion industry groups, including Planned Parenthood, to weaponize law enforcement against pro-lifers. Yet the abortion industry also worked with multiple state attorneys general, according to documents obtained by the Daily Signal through a public records request with the office of Wisconsin Attorney General Josh Kaul.

Some attorneys general had already begun to act even before the Supreme Court issued its ruling in Dobbs. However, Planned Parenthood’s memo did provide specific actions that matched the subsequent policies of blue states.

Pro-choice groups had pushed Biden’s Justice Department to ramp up prosecutions under the FACE Act, short for the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act, a 1994 law meant to safeguard access to abortion clinics, pregnancy centers, and houses of worship.

The Planned Parenthood memo called for the strategy to be applied at the state level: “States should utilize all state laws, including state FACE Acts, to protect health care facilities that provide abortion.”

Eight days after the memo, Platkin announced a partnership with the U.S. attorney’s office for the Eastern District of New Jersey and issued guidance to state prosecutors for enforcing clinic access laws.

The memo further stated that attorneys general could issue opinions to clarify legal questions on abortion, such as “guidance explicitly asserting consent to abortion rights for minors.”

According to the Center for American Progress, state attorneys general in Arizona, California, Connecticut, New Jersey, New York, and Pennsylvania issued guidance on the legality of abortion and the status of medication abortion.

Planned Parenthood also called for states to coordinate legal representation for women, abortionists, and auxiliaries such as abortion funds. Arizona, California, New Jersey, and New York established task forces for this purpose, according to the Center for American Progress.

Kaul’s office, which fulfilled its legal obligation to provide the records, did not respond to inquiries for this story.

A spokesperson for Planned Parenthood did not respond to phone and email inquiries for this story.

Neither a spokesperson for the Progressive State Leaders Committee nor the Democratic Attorneys General Association responded to inquiries for this story. The Progressive State Leaders Committee is a 501(c)(4) nonprofit advocacy group founded in 2005 that shares an address with the Democratic Attorneys General Association and does not have any paid staff listed on its tax filing, according to the Capital Research Center, which monitors nonprofits.