National pharmacy chains looking to sell abortion pills as easily as candy bars will likely "regret" getting into the abortion industry, the chief of an international pro-life organization says.
"My hope obviously is that they regret getting into the abortion industry," 40 Days for Life CEO and President Shawn Carney told Fox News Digital of prominent pharmacies such as Walgreens and CVS.
Following the landmark Supreme Court decision on Dobbs v. Jackson, which effectively ended the recognition of abortion as a constitutional right, abortion drugs mifepristone and misoprostol took center stage as an alternative to surgical abortions.
In January, the FDA finalized a rule allowing pharmacies to become certified to sell the drugs – CVS and Walgreens soon after announced they were applying for the certification.
FDA TO PERMIT SOME RETAIL PHARMACIES TO DISPENSE ABORTION PILLS
Prior to the change, only certified doctors or clinics and a handful of mail-order pharmacies could dispense the drug. Under the updated rule, pharmacies will be able to dispense the pill directly to women after receiving a prescription.
"No one was talking about this before the Supreme Court overturned Roe. CVS and Walgreens weren't clamoring to dispense abortion pills. They weren't lobbying the FDA to do that," Carney said.
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Carney said that offering pills at the pharmacies would make getting an abortion as easy as picking up a candy bar or bag of ice after work – while also turning the wildly popular stores into an operation similar to Planned Parenthood.
"I don't know why [pharmacies] would want any part of the controversy because, unlike the candy bar, which is a known entity, these abortion pills are dangerous," he said, explaining that "1 in 4 four women" wind up in the ER after taking the pills, and that danger is at the heart of why 40 Days for Life is sounding the alarm.
The pro-life leader argued that pharmacies selling abortion pills "will overtake Planned Parenthood as the largest abortion providers in the country if this goes through."
Carney added that the pharmacies will likely see high turnover rate of employees who don’t want to work at an establishment that offers abortions, while he’s already heard of Americans switching their prescriptions to other pharmacies that have not indicated they will sell the pills.
Since the FDA’s announcement, the updated rule and abortion pills themselves have faced fierce pushback, including through court cases.
Twenty Republican state attorneys general wrote a letter to Walgreens and CVS in February, warning the companies that their plans to use the mail to distribute abortion pills would violate state and federal laws. Walgreens later responded that it would not dispense the abortion pills in those 20 states.
The FDA approved mifepristone in 2000, and last Friday, a federal Trump-appointed district court judge issued an injunction against the FDA's approval of the drug as a lawsuit challenging its safety makes its way through federal court. That same day, an Obama-appointed district court judge issued a conflicting preliminary injunction barring the FDA from "altering" the current availability of mifepristone.
As of Thursday, a federal appeals court in New Orleans partially overturned the Texas judge’s ruling, allowing mifepristone to be available but only to be dispensed to women who are up to seven weeks pregnant.
APPEALS COURT PARTIALLY OVERTURNS LOWER RULING, PRESERVES ACCESS TO MIFEPRISTONE ABORTION PILL
The ongoing litigation has led to a handful of Democrat state leaders saying they are stockpiling the abortion pills, including in New York, Massachusetts and Washington state.
Carney said that for pharmacies to get involved with the abortion industry makes "no sense," pointing to how "half the country is pro-life."
WALGREENS WON'T SELL ABORTION PILLS IN 20 STATES WHERE REPUBLICAN ATTORNEYS GENERAL OBJECT
"Half the country's pro-life, and they're just going to say, ‘We're going to dispense, on a larger scale than Planned Parenthood, that what you adamantly and vehemently oppose.’ That’s what they're saying to their customer base. They are the worst business that should get involved with abortion, because they're convenient stores. They're everywhere," he said.
40 Days for Life has been protesting outside Walgreens and CVS locations following the FDA’s updated rule, and Carney said he’s already spoken to the pharmacies’ shareholders who thanked him for sounding the alarm on the matter.
"There's just a difference between being for abortion or being against abortion, and doing abortions at locations where people are running in and buying Skittles," he said.
40 Days for Life is getting ready for a push this summer to sign people up to hold peaceful protests outside more CVS and Walgreens locations, Carney said. He noted that the group is excited for the demonstrations as those pharmacies are often located in prime locations with a lot of foot traffic – as opposed to abortion clinics that are often "off the beaten path."
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"It's a great way to educate people. And obviously we're offering alternatives to abortion for those that are going to CVS and Walgreens for abortions," he said. "But really the problem for CVS and Walgreens is that 95% of the people [at the stores] have no interest whatsoever in abortion. They're just going to get their diabetes medication or pick up a bag of ice on their way home, and now they're in the middle of an abortion controversy."
