Investors urge Walmart, Costco to keep abortion pills out of stores

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CNA Staff, Aug 9, 2024 / 13:33 pm (CNA).

A consortium of investors is warning major retailers including Walmart and Costco against selling the abortion pill, arguing that it will drive away customers and bring “legal and political risk” to the businesses. 

The letters, distributed earlier this month and signed by more than three dozen investment advisers, fiduciaries, and other financial leaders, urged the retailers to refrain from stocking the abortion-inducing drug mifepristone in their stores. The signatories hold tens of millions of dollars in investments in the named corporations. 

The letters note that the New York City comptroller recently urged the retailers to begin offering the abortion pill, arguing that failing to do so would raise “investor concerns” and would call into question the retailers’ “commitment to maximizing sales and long-term shareholder value.” New York City’s pension system invests heavily in the retailers. 

In their letter, the signatories disputed those claims, calling it “not true.” 

The investors argued that stocking the deadly pill would be “legally and politically fraught,” that it would raise “significant reputational issues,” and that it would “[reduce] the company’s customer base, both literally and because it would drive away many existing customers.”

The investors noted that the planned distribution of the drug is currently in flux. They pointed to the recent Supreme Court decision in FDA v. Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine; that ruling allowed the abortion pill to remain on the market but only “on procedural grounds,” leaving the ultimate legality of the pill still uncertain.

The retailers would “likely” be prohibited from distributing the drug through mail, the letters noted, given current federal law. A total of 14 states, meanwhile, outlaw the drug completely, while another four restrict its distribution, and Louisiana classifies the drug as a controlled substance. 

“Continuing to promote this widespread form of abortion is only likely to generate even more political backlash that reduces market opportunity and increases legal risk,” the investors wrote. 

The retailers should “carefully consider the cost of alienating [their] diverse customers and potential customers just to boost one product” in their pharmacies, the letters further argued, while allowing the drug to end the lives of unborn children could also significantly impact future sales. 

“The Brookings Institution recently estimated that the average American family will spend $310,000 to raise a child born in 2015,” the signatories said. “This includes over $50,000 in food and $15,000 on clothes, not to mention furniture, other household and health care items, toys and games, or diapers and formula, all things your stores sell.” 

Dispensing the abortion drug “will reduce demand for all of these and only make worse the crisis of record-low birth rates,” the letters said. 

Uncertainties around the health risks of the pill could further endanger the businesses, the investors said.

“Mifepristone terminates life and does so in ways that the FDA acknowledges risks serious harm to the mother,” they said. “Dispensing it is filled with legal and political risk and will inject [retailers] into the middle of an intense political battle at great expense to [their] reputation.”

The extensive list of signatories was led by Robert Netzly, the CEO of Inspire Investing, which on its website says it works to “[empower] Christian investors through biblically responsible investing excellence and innovation.”

Earlier this year, the company was ranked as one of the top registered investment advisers by USA Today.