(LifeSiteNews) — Membership-based wholesale chain Costco has confirmed it will not stock the abortion drug mifepristone in its pharmacies for the foreseeable future, citing “lack of demand,” while pro-lifers maintain that a successful pressure campaign is the true reason.
“Our position at this time not to sell mifepristone, which has not changed, is based on the lack of demand from our members and other patients, who we understand generally have the drug dispensed by their medical providers,” Costco told Reuters in a statement published Friday.
As previously covered by LifeSiteNews, pharmacy-offering retailers such as Costco have been under pressure for months both to stock the abortion pill and to abstain from doing so. While others, such as Walgreens and CVS, stated their intentions to get into the abortion pill business in states that allow it, Costco never made a commitment in either direction.
“Maximizing shareholder value requires Costco to avoid politicizing its services and to continue to do what it has always done best, provide excellent grocery and retail goods to families,” Alliance Defending Freedom wrote in a lobbying campaign to retailers. “The ‘growing market opportunity’ of abortion drugs is legally and politically fraught, raises significant reputational issues, and reduces the company’s customer base, both literally and because it would drive away many existing customers.”
The company denied a political component to its latest decision, instead framing it as a business judgment. However, pro-lifers argue that the vigorous activity of the abortion pill industry since the fall of Roe v. Wade weighs against the idea of a lack of demand and instead credit lobbying campaigns such as ADF’s with convincing Costco not to get involved in abortions.
“We applaud Costco for doing the right thing by its shareholders and resisting activist calls to sell abortion drugs,” ADF attorney Michael Ross responded. “Retailers like Costco keep their doors open by selling a lifetime of purchases to families, both large and small. They have nothing to gain and much to lose by becoming abortion dispensaries. Retail pharmacies exist to serve the health and wellness of their customers, but abortion drugs like mifepristone undermine that mission by putting women’s health at risk.”
“We’re honored to work alongside the many like-minded partners who made this moment possible — including Inspire Investing and public officials like state financial officers, who put the deeply held values and fiduciary needs of their clients first and simply call upon the companies they own to do the same,” he continued.
Twelve states currently ban all or most abortions. But the unregulated, no-oversight distribution of contraceptive and abortion pills across state lines has become arguably the abortion lobby’s most effective tactic for preserving abortion “access.”
In November 2022, Operation Rescue reported that a net decrease of 36 abortion facilities in 2022 led to the lowest number in almost 50 years, yet the chemical abortion business “surged” with 64 percent of new facilities built last year specializing in dispensing mifepristone and misoprostol. Citing data from the pro-abortion Guttmacher Institute, STAT says mifepristone “accounts for roughly half of all abortions in the U.S.”
This is despite the fact that a 2020 open letter from a coalition of pro-life groups to then-U.S. Food & Drug Administration (FDA) Commissioner Stephen Hahn noted that the FDA’s own adverse reporting system says the “abortion pill has resulted in over 4,000 reported adverse events since 2000, including 24 maternal deaths. Adverse events are notoriously underreported to the FDA, and as of 2016, the FDA only requires abortion pill manufacturers to report maternal deaths.” A recent Charlotte Lozier Institute study also found that most emergency room visits stemming from abortion pill complications are misattributed to miscarriages, further making the pills appear safer than they really are.
“A November 2021 study by Charlotte Lozier Institute scholars appeared in the peer-reviewed journal Health Services Research and Managerial Epidemiology,” Catholic University of America research associate Michael New wrote. “They analyzed state Medicaid data of over 400,000 abortions from 17 states that fund elective abortions through their Medicaid programs. They found that the rate of abortion-pill-related emergency-room visits increased over 500 percent from 2002 through 2015. The rate of emergency-room visits for surgical abortions also increased during the same time period, but by a much smaller margin.’”
Whether the issue will be resolved nationally remains to be seen. President Donald Trump has taken a number of pro-life actions since returning to office but said on the campaign trail that he would not enforce federal law prohibiting abortion pills from being dispensed by mail. Health & Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has since promised a “complete review” of the medical risks of abortion pills.
