(Oregon Right to Life) — Popular American wholesaler Costco last week said it has no plans to sell the abortion pill mifepristone, a decision pro-life advocates are celebrating as the abortion pill comes under increased scrutiny. Pro-life advocates have urged Costco, along with several other major retailers, to resist pressure to sell the dangerous drug.
On Thursday, Costco said in a statement to Bloomberg News that the company “hasn’t seen consumer demand for” mifepristone and therefore would not be stocking it at its pharmacies. Costco operates more than 500 retail pharmacies nationwide.
In a later statement, a Costco spokesperson told The Hill: “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.”
Pro-life advocates have celebrated Costco’s position as a victory for the unborn and for pregnant women, who frequently face serious and sometimes fatal risks including hemorrhage, sepsis, and incomplete abortion after taking mifepristone.
“We commend Costco’s clear message that it won’t be complicit in the abortion industry’s agenda to sell dangerous abortion drugs,” Emily Erin Davis, vice president of communications at SBA Pro-Life America, told the Daily Caller News Foundation last week. “We urge all concerned Americans to continue advocating with their voices and wallets by avoiding pharmacies that actively harm women and children.”
Davis concluded by urging additional commercial chains “like Walgreens, CVS and others to follow Costco’s lead and avoid getting in the life-ending business of abortion.” CVS and Walgreens began dispensing mifepristone in select locations in March 2024.
Costco’s affirmation that it would not pursue licensing to sell the abortion pill comes after hundreds of investors, dozens of financial managers, roughly 6,000 Costco members, and many other pro-life advocates across the country (including over 1,000 in Oregon) urged Costco and other chains to reject pressure from a state government official to dispense the drugs.
In July 2024, New York City Comptroller Brad Lander wrote to the CEOs of Albertsons, Costco, Walmart, Kroger, and McKesson, calling on them to begin doling out the abortion pill in their pharmacies. According to a press release from Lander’s office, New York City’s “pension funds hold over $1.3 billion in total shares of these companies.”
In his letter, Lander argued that “[m]aking mifepristone available benefits customers and employees, increases sales, and generates long-term shareholder value.”
But the investors who urged Costco and the other companies not to listen to Lander’s recommendations argued that 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 Washington Examiner reported at the time.
READ: Investors Rally Against Pressure for Stores Like Costco, Walmart to Dispense Abortion Pill
In comments to Fox & Friends, Live Action founder and CEO Lila Rose said Costco’s affirmation of its position is “a major victory.”
“This is a major victory for pro-life Americans, and for children in the womb, and women, because Costco has chosen not to sell these deadly pills and to actually do what they do best, which is actually help families,” Rose said. “And so we’re celebrating this, and I think we also are sending a strong message to the chains that are selling deadly drugs – which are killing 600,000 children every year – and so we’re urging CVS and Walgreens and other pharmacies to stop peddling death; and for the FDA, Trump’s administration, to pull the pill.”
Calls for the FDA to pull mifepristone from the market have increased sharply following the re-election of President Donald Trump last year.
To date, U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has directed the FDA to review the matter, and FDA chief Marty Makary has pledged to do so – but no action has yet taken place.
Last week, nearly two dozen Republican attorneys general signed onto a joint letter urging the Trump administration to either restore regulations on the dangerous abortion pill or pull it from the market pending further action.
READ: ‘Serious Risks to Women’: Over 20 Attorneys General Call for Regulation of Abortion Pill
Calls to either restore regulations on the drug or remove it from the market come after a series of regulatory restrictions were removed over the past decade, Oregon Right to Life has highlighted.
In 2016, the FDA expanded the timeframe in which mifepristone could be prescribed during pregnancy. It also removed the requirement to report complications that do not result in death. Then in 2021, during the COVID-19 pandemic, the FDA permitted mifepristone to be prescribed online and distributed via mail. Local pharmacies were also authorized to dispense the drugs, and in January 2023, that permission was extended to retail pharmacies.
Amid the rollback of the regulations, abortion pills have become the most popular method of abortion in the U.S., reportedly accounting for an estimated 63% of legal abortions in 2023.
The popularity and increased accessibility of the drugs, combined with their risk of causing serious adverse reactions, have prompted widespread concern for women’s health and safety in addition to increased action to protect the lives of the unborn from the violence of chemical abortion.
