DEFUND 250: 10 times Planned Parenthood misled clients and the public

On July 4, 2026, America will celebrate the 250th anniversary of her founding — but unless Congress votes to continue banning federal Medicaid dollars from abortion providers like Planned Parenthood, July 4 will also be the day that America's most prolific killer of preborn children will see those taxpayer dollars once again pouring into its bank accounts.

Planned Parenthood deserves to be permanently defunded — and Live Action News' series, 'DEFUND 250,' plans to remind the public of many reasons why.

Planned Parenthood has, for decades, misled the public and its own clients. Here are examples of this:

#1: 7 ways Planned Parenthood misleads women through deceptive marketing

Planned Parenthood's abortion revenue is estimated to be over $200 million annually, so it is no wonder this abortion corporation deceives clients by:

• Redefining when life begins

• Changing terminology depending on the ‘wantedness’ of the preborn child

• Depicting a preborn child inaccurately as a blob or “dot”

• Claiming the abortion pill is safer than many things

#2: Missouri AG accused Planned Parenthood of violating Missouri Merchandising Practices Act

Missouri’s Attorney General filed suit against Planned Parenthood under the Missouri Merchandising Practices Act (MMPA), seeking to “enjoin Planned Parenthood Federation of America from continuing to make illegal, false statements misrepresenting the abortion pill.”

The court document states:

Planned Parenthood is lying about the abortion pill to cut costs and boost revenue. Most physicians are not interested in working for Planned Parenthood—in part because of what the New York Times reports as a pattern of “botched care” at Planned Parenthoods across the country that has put Planned Parenthood in a “crisis.”

... Indeed, a Planned Parenthood facility in Columbia, Missouri, was recently shut down by the health department because the facility was using moldy abortion equipment. Working for Planned Parenthood carries reputational risk.

... In lying to, and misleading, women about the true risks of the abortion pill, Planned Parenthood Federation of America has committed unfair or deceptive practices actionable under the MMPA.

#3: Florida sues Planned Parenthood for 'manifestly false' abortion pill safety claims

In November, Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier filed a lawsuit against Planned Parenthood, accusing them of lying to women about the safety of the abortion pill, specifically targeting a statement on X that claimed, “Mifepristone is safe. Safer than Tylenol.”

"That claim is manifestly false," the lawsuit stated, adding:

Planned Parenthood and its various Florida actors know this claim is false. They know it badly misleads the women who seek information about the safety and risks of chemical abortion. They know that the profitable abortion pills they sell are far more dangerous than commonplace over-the-counter pain medication. They know the serious risks and harms from taking abortion pills.

In other words, they know this deceptive marketing campaign will induce women to become customers of risky and harmful chemical abortions.

#4: Planned Parenthood advertises and dispenses abortion pill past FDA-approved limits

The abortion pill regimen has only been approved by the FDA for use through 70 days (10 weeks) gestation. But the abortion industry, including Planned Parenthood, has been committing chemical abortions past this time frame, flouting the FDA’s limits.

Planned Parenthood, however, is also publicly promoting on its websites gestational limits for the abortion pill regimen that exceed FDA limits, when failures (incomplete or ineffective abortions) can occur twice as often. This has led to lawsuits:

• One lawsuit filed against Planned Parenthood accused the organization of miscalculating a woman’s pregnancy so egregiously that she painfully delivered a “fully formed” 30 to 36-week baby boy into a toilet. That abortion client was allegedly given abortion pills.

• A separate lawsuit alleged the pregnant woman delivered her 22-week stillborn baby boy into a toilet.

#5: Planned Parenthood Schemes to Hide Abortion Pill Complications

The late Sue Thayer, who was once a Planned Parenthood in Iowa manager but later became a pro-life activist, revealed in an interview with Alliance Defending Freedom how Planned Parenthood had been coaching women to lie when experiencing abortion pill complications and presenting to an emergency room:

“Staff were instructed to tell patients that if you go to the emergency room and you tell them that you’ve taken these pills, your care may not be as well, as good because the providers there could judge you for having an abortion.

And, really, they said at that point it’s no different than having a miscarriage so there’s no point in telling them that you’ve taken the pills to start the procedure.”

What are webcam abortions?

Live Action News has documented that for decades, the abortion industry and Planned Parenthood have participated in a scheme to hide abortion pill complications, guaranteeing inaccurate complication reports.

#6: Planned Parenthood claims young children can know their “gender identity”

Planned Parenthood claims on its website that a child can know his or her “gender identity” by the age of two. Notably, this is the same organization which is #1 in the nation for killing preborn children based on a pregnant mother’s desires.

“Many people know their gender identity as young as age 2, but others may not fully understand their gender until later in life. It’s OK not to know — or to be questioning —  at any age,” Planned Parenthood’s website claims, citing no sources for these claims.

“Gender identity is how you feel inside and how you express your gender through clothing, behavior, and personal appearance. It’s a feeling that begins very early in life,” Planned Parenthood also claims.

#7: Planned Parenthood Falsely Claims Men Can Get Pregnant

Bhavik Kumar, a Planned Parenthood of the Gulf Coast medical director for primary and transgender services, once suggested biological men can get pregnant.

When Rep. Andrew Clyde (R-Ga.) asked Kumar whether biological men can get pregnant and have birth, Kumar replied "So men can have pregnancies especially trans men."

In recent Congressional testimony, Dr. Nisha Verma, who "provid[ed] abortion care at Planned Parenthoods in the Delaware area," according to Society of Family Planning (SFP), dodged answering the specific question, "Can men get pregnant?" referring to the answer as "complex."

#8: Planned Parenthood's Closures and Restructuring Planned Long Before Defunding

Planned Parenthood, which never allows a funding crisis to go to waste, blamed multiple facility closures on the defunding in the “Big Beautiful Bill.”

The fact is that...

• Nearly a year ago, Planned Parenthood signaled plans to shutter facilities across the country due to deficits, structural shifts, staffing shortages, and more.

• Planned Parenthood has seen a decrease in patients since a record high in 2006.

• The mail-order abortion pill regimen also caused abortion businesses, including Planned Parenthood, to begin shifting their business models to incorporate telehealth and virtual services (including the abortion pill and even birth control) to a greater degree.

• Planned Parenthood has stated that 70% of its abortion business comes from the sale of the abortion pill regimen, and they are shifting to an online Virtual model for cost savings. In fact in 2023-24 it announced that “Virtual Health Centers (VHC) have been introduced at 23 Planned Parenthood affiliates.”

#9: Planned Parenthood Lies About Pregnancy Options

A video investigation previously released by Live Action revealed that many pregnant women who contact Planned Parenthood facilities about their pregnancy options are told that the only service the government-funded organization can offer them is abortion. 

Pregnant women call Planned Parenthood to hear about their options

Planned Parenthood’s website once acknowledged that if a woman is pregnant, she has three options to consider: “abortion, adoption, and parenting.” This marketing lured in unsuspecting women assuming those "options" would be offered.

They also once claimed (under the “adoption” option) to have “specially trained staff that can give you accurate information about all your options and other resources.”

Planned Parenthood’s website also once claimed the corporation offered “adoption services” and “adoption referrals.”

The fact is the abortion corporation has only ever offered referrals. And, after Live Action exposed the deception, that claim was scrubbed from its websites.

According to Planned Parenthood reports, adoption referrals have fallen over 56% since a high of ~4.9k in 2007. This means that for every adoption referral, Planned Parenthood kills over 187 preborn children.

#10: Planned Parenthood Promised to Train Workers to Help Sexual Abuse Victims. They Lied.

After Live Action released undercover footage exposing Planned Parenthood employees aiding and abetting sex traffickers, the abortion chain claimed that it would retrain staff across the country to properly report suspected sexual abuse of minors to authorities.

However, according to Planned Parenthood insider Ramona Treviño, who was employed as the Sherman, Texas, Planned Parenthood manager when these so-called retraining sessions were to have occurred, the retraining sessions instructed staff how to identify undercover journalists and whether they were being recorded, instead of helping employees to identify and report potential abuse.

“That experience for me left me so disgusted that I couldn’t see how Planned Parenthood could ever redeem themselves after that,” Treviño stated in the video interview below:

Planned Parenthood Lies about Training Staff to Report Sex Traffickers

Go Deeper:

Read more about how the Washington Post has repeatedly issued "Pinocchios" for Planned Parenthood's lies:

• 2015: Washington Post: 3 Pinocchios for Planned Parenthood’s “3 percent” figure

• 2016: Washington Post: Two Pinocchios for ’99 percent of women have used birth control’ claim
  2016: “1 in 3 women has had an abortion” claim gets four Pinocchios

• 2019: Washington Post: Four Pinocchios for Planned Parenthood lie on abortion deaths