It can be hard to take James Uthmeier seriously. When he was sworn into office as Florida’s attorney general in February, Uthmeier promised “No empty rhetoric. No posturing.” Since then, though, he has engaged in a string of rapid-fire threats and click-bait headlines. In the last six weeks alone, Uthmeier accused Microsoft of unfairly withholding grant money from anti-abortion pregnancy centers, suggesting it was hostile to Christians. He filed to sue California over its tax rules in the U. S. Supreme Court. He joined with other red state attorneys general trying to effectively put three recycling companies “radical environmental activists” out of business. And he has led the charge to open the notorious Everglades immigrant detention center with the cynical name, Alligator Alcatraz. The latest lawsuit This month, he’s targeted Planned Parenthood. Uthmeier is suing the nonprofit over its statement that drugs used in medical abortions, notably mifepristone, are safer than Tylenol. It’s not just a lie and a money-making scheme, the suit charges, it’s racketeering. Even if the Planned Parenthood case was a strong one, it is still a mistake, because it will inevitably siphon resources from other major lawsuits, which are already racking up bills for private legal counsel. Suing a national company is expensive and can drag on for years. But Uthmeier has spent his first 10 months in office suing several billion-dollar corporations, such as Roku and SnapChat. To handle the work, he has hired outside lawyers, including attorneys from the Boies Schiller Flexner firm, which Bloomberg Law reports is charging Florida $875 an hour for work by partners, and Cooper & Kirk, which is charging an average $700 an hour. Attorneys with the Colorado-based First & Fourteenth law firm are working on the Planned Parenthood suit, according to court documents. It’s not known whether they are charging fees or looking for a slice of any settlement. That could be considerable. The state is seeking $350 million in penalties. But the broader goal is to put Planned Parenthood out of business in Florida and possibly cripple it nationally: In addition to the millions, the judge is asked to consider stripping Planned Parenthood’s Florida licenses, forcing the sale of its properties and banning it from advertising or charging for medical abortions. Any state-blessed legal effort to put Planned Parenthood out of business must be taken seriously. But the blustering lawsuit reads like an anti-abortion press release, not a reasoned argument on drug safety or a fact-based confirmation of malicious intent. In the suit, doctors are not physicians, they are abortionists. “Children” are “ripped into pieces” or “starved to death.” The medical term for a drug-induced abortion is a medical abortion, but Uthmeier refers to it as a “chemical” abortion, a vaguely threatening description embraced by anti-abortion advocates. Planned Parenthood executives, the lawsuit maintains, are essentially a cash-hungry cabal putting women’s lives at risk with a carefully cultivated lie about Tylenol and safety. A common comparison Uthmeier provides no evidence that Planned Parenthood recklessly used the comparison. In fact, a scientist cited by the attorney general acknowledged that the Tylenol example is repeated by congressmen and included in medical journals, including the New England Journal of Medicine. Any of their statements could also lead a Florida woman to seek a medical abortion. Does Uthmeier plan on suing them too? This attack on Planned Parenthood is in line with a wave of broader efforts to roll back abortion access. Most notably, Health and Human Services Secretary RFK Jr has ordered the Food and Drug Administration to review mifepristone’s safety. His instruction, like Uthmeier’s suit, dances around the obvious. Abortions are 14 times safer than childbirth. Draconian abortion restrictions like Florida’s make pregnancies more dangerous, because they can delay or halt lifesaving care for pregnant women. That may not make attention-grabbing headlines. But it’s information Uthmeier should be taking seriously.
https://www.sun-sentinel.com/2025/11/24/floridas-needless-abuse-of-planned-parenthood-editorial/
