Democratic candidate for Missouri Attorney General Elad Gross after filing to run for office in February (Annelise Hanshaw/Missouri Independent).
Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey’s contention that a decrease in teen pregnancy could hurt the state financially and politically is “an absolutely insane argument,” his Democratic rival on the Nov. 5 ballot said Thursday.
“Apparently he believes we need more teen pregnancies in Missouri, because otherwise we might lose a congressional seat or federal funding if our population decreases,” said Elad Gross, a St. Louis attorney challenging Bailey. He added: “There’s certainly a lot to unpack there.”
Gross was reacting to litigation filed by Bailey and GOP attorneys general from Kansas and Idaho earlier this month seeking to restrict access to the abortion pill mifepristone.
A previous version of the lawsuit was thrown out by the U.S. Supreme Court after it concluded the plaintiffs did not have standing to sue because they couldn’t show they had been harmed.
In order to establish standing this time around, Bailey argues access to mifepristone would lower “birth rates for teenaged mothers,” and thus cause population loss that could result in “diminishment of political representation and loss of federal funds.”
Missouri AG in abortion pill lawsuit argues fewer teen pregnancies hurt state financially
Missouri’s teen pregnancy birth rate has steadily declined over the past several years, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, though it still remains among the highest in the country.
Bailey’s litigation, Gross noted, specifically looks at pregnancy rates of 15 to 19 year olds.
“He’s talking about people in some cases who are underage,” Gross said, “in a state where our abortion ban doesn’t include exceptions for rape or incest.”
In Missouri, 15 and 16 year olds cannot consent to sex with someone who is more than 4 years older or who is over 21 years old.
Bailey’s campaign responded to Gross’ critiques by pointing to a 2009 opinion piece Gross wrote for the student newspaper at Duke University where he criticized then-President Barack Obama for appointing so many “czars” to tackle difficult issues.
In the piece, Gross jokinging says that if Obama insists on appointing “a czar for every crisis area, he may want to appoint a Czar of Reproduction” since “more teenage girls are becoming mothers and more children are born to unmarried mothers…. Sounds like a job for a czar!”
“Andrew Bailey has always protected innocent life, while Mr. Gross advocated for Barack Obama to name a federal ‘Czar of Reproduction’ to oversee teenage pregnancies as a solution,” Bailey’s campaign said in an emailed statement. “The death of innocent human life carries a cost that rips the moral fabric of society, and our pro-abortion opponent grossly ignores those costs in favor of extreme late-term and unlimited abortion policies.”
Gross said his 2009 piece was clearly a critique of “big government” and the Obama Administration.
“I didn’t know that Bailey had such a problem with reading comprehension,” Gross said, “but that would explain a lot of his losses in court.”