Pro-life advocacy organization Live Action discovered last week that two popular grocery store pharmacy chains had begun offering abortion pills. Sam’s Club Pharmacy now dispenses abortion pills, and Kroger Pharmacy provided discounted $7 abortion pills to health club members, before removing the offer from its website on Monday. 

Sam’s Club Pharmacy now sells its members mifepristone, which kills an unborn baby by blocking progesterone, which starves a baby from oxygen and nutrients. Sam’s Club, a division of Walmart, Inc., detailed possible risks for taking the 200-mg pill. However, the pharmacy website failed to account for the number of women who require surgery to stop bleeding after taking the pill.

In FDA’s medication guide, as many as 7% of women who take mifepristone will require surgery to halt bleeding or complete the abortion, rather than the “very few cases” Sam’s Club claims to. Guttmacher Institute reported that of the 1 million abortions in 2023, 63% were from abortion pills. In their news report on Sam’s Club, Live Action points out that as many as 45,000 women would need surgery after taking the abortion pill yearly.

Live Action also discovered Kroger, the sixth-largest pharmacy chain, was offering mifepristone. While Planned Parenthood offers mifepristone for an average of $580, Kroger Heath Savings Club members could obtain the pill for $7. 

After The Washington Stand reported on Kroger’s website offer, Kroger responded by email, saying, “The Kroger Company Family of Pharmacies do not carry Mifepristone, nor do we dispense it.” However, the website still listed the chemical abortion pill until the following morning when Kroger removed mifepristone from the website. 

In March, Walgreens and CVS offered abortion pills, a direct result from the policy of the Biden-Harris administration. The FDA allowed retail pharmacies to offer abortion pills January 2023.

Following the policy change, Democrat politicians have pressured retail pharmacies, including grocery store pharmacies, to complete the certification process to dispense mifepristone, which may have influenced Sam’s Club and Kroger. 

In a June 2023 Congress meeting, New York Congressman Dan Goldman and California Congresswoman Judy Chu criticized Walmart, Costco, Safeway, Kroger and HealthMart for not undergoing the certification process after FDA’s new authorization. New York City Comptroller Brad Lander’ sent letters to Walmart, Costco, Kroger, Albertsons and McKesson that urged them to “[p]rovide abortion medication or risk losing investor confidence” and to “start dispensing mifepristone without delay.”

When the FDA allowed retail pharmacies to offer abortion pills, some pharmacists spoke against it, including Pharmacist Corey Furman. President of Boone Drugs Inc., Furman said his 16 stores would not seek certification, as it would not only terminate babies’ lives but also harm the mother. 

“You’re going to have very nasty side effects,” Furman said in a 2023 interview with Decision Magazine. “A lot of bleeding, a lot of cramping. Women bleed for one to two weeks after this. Infections can happen quite a bit. The side effect profile from this medication is very significant. Typically, a side effect profile for a medication is significant if it reaches 8% to 10% of patients, sometimes even less than that. But we’re seeing side effects from these medicines up to around 40% to 50% of patients. So, this is very serious, very dangerous medication, and it’s obviously dangerous for the baby, but it’s also dangerous for the mother.”

Nick Infante, Walmart’s vice president of state and local government affairs, thanked Lander for sending the letter that urged Walmart to obtain certification to dispense mifepristone. However, Walmart has not published a decisive statement.

Mary Szoch, director of the Center for Human Dignity at Family Research Council, criticized the grocery chains for focusing on killing babies rather than feeding families.

“They should stick to providing food for families,” Szoch said in an interview with TheWashington Stand. “Grocery stores should not be abortion businesses.”

Photo: Alamy