Pro-Life Advocates Protest Walgreens Shareholder Meeting, Tell Drug Store to Stop Selling Abortion Pills

National   |   Micaiah Bilger   |   Jan 27, 2023   |   7:06PM   |   Washington, DC

A crowd of pro-life advocates protested Walgreens’ decision to begin selling abortion drugs Thursday outside of its annual shareholders meeting in California.

The protest was organized by Live Action and Survivors of the Abortion Holocaust, according to posts on Twitter.

Reuters reports the demonstration took place during the Walgreens Boots Alliance Inc. annual shareholders meeting in Newport Coast, as the company faces boycotts and protests for its decision to sell abortion drugs that kill unborn babies up to 10 weeks of pregnancy.

CVS and RiteAid announced similar plans this month after the Biden administration decided to allow pharmacies to sell the dangerous abortion drug mifepristone, which has killed millions of babies and dozens of women. Previously, mifepristone only could be dispensed by abortion facilities, medical offices and hospitals or under the supervision of a licensed physician.

A video from the protest shows Lila Rose, president and founder of Live Action, imploring Walgreens to reverse course and refuse to profit off the deaths of children, according to the pro-abortion blog Jezebel.

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“Walgreens, you don’t have to do this. You can stay in the area of health care and actually provide help and healing for families and be a true health care company,” Rose said, according to the video. “You don’t have to sell abortion pills that kill children. Pro-life America will boycott you!”

Rose said the abortion drug has killed more than 5 million children and at least 28 women in the U.S. since its approval in 2000.

According to Jezebel, the pro-life group chanted, “Walgreens, stop selling abortions!” and parked a truck outside the building that displayed a similar message: “Walgreens, stop dispensing death with the abortion pill.” The report noticed another well-known pro-life advocate nicknamed Pro-Life Spiderman at the protest as well.

News outlets primarily focused on a small group of protesters who entered the shareholders meeting uninvited, but most stayed outside and the protest was peaceful.

Pro-life organizations are urging Americans to boycott the pharmacy chains.

Students for Life and 40 Days for Life also are organizing protests. Many will take place March 4 at local pharmacies across the country in a National Day of Protest to “Cancel Abortion Cartels.”

The drug mifepristone, typically taken with a second drug, misoprostol, now is used to abort more than half of all unborn babies in the U.S. every year, or nearly half a million, according to the Guttmacher Institute.

The FDA also has linked mifepristone to at least 28 women’s deaths and 4,000 serious complications between 2000 and 2018. However, under President Barack Obama, the FDA stopped requiring that non-fatal complications from mifepristone be reported. So the numbers almost certainly are much higher.

Studies indicate the risks are more common than what abortion activists claim, with as many as one in 17 women requiring hospital treatment. A recent study by the Charlotte Lozier Institute found that the rate of abortion-related emergency room visits by women taking the abortion drug increased more than 500 percent between 2002 and 2015.

Another new study from the University of Toronto, “Short-Term Adverse Outcomes After Mifepristone–Misoprostol Versus Procedural Induced Abortion,” published in the Annals of Internal Medicine, found that one in ten women who took the abortion pill had to go to the emergency room, according to Pregnancy Help News.