Could this be a Christmas miracle?
Kroger Backtracks, Removes Abortion Drug from Pharmacies
By: Dan Hart, originally published December 17, 2024, The Washington Stand
Is this a Christmas miracle?
In a remarkable turn of events, grocery giant Kroger has removed the abortion drug mifepristone from their Health Savings Club website Monday following an email exchange with The Washington Stand in response to our story on December 14. Kroger, the second-largest grocery chain in the U.S., is also the country’s sixth-largest pharmacy chain, earning prescription revenues of $14.5 billion in 2023.
On December 12, Live Action News first reported that Kroger’s Health Savings Club website listed mifepristone as an available drug, stating that “It is used to end a pregnancy.” After verifying that the pill was still listed on Kroger’s site as of December 13, TWS published a story on the topic the next day.
On the afternoon of December 16, TWS received an email from Kroger’s communications director stating, “The Kroger Company Family of Pharmacies do not carry Mifepristone, nor do we dispense it.” As of that time, however, Kroger’s Health Savings Club website still listed the drug. After we pointed out the discrepancy and requested an explanation, Kroger responded, “The Kroger Family of Pharmacies doesn’t carry Mifepristone and was listed on the Kroger Health Savings Club site in error,” further requesting a “retraction of Kroger’s inclusion in the story.”
However, the mifepristone listing still remained on the site at 5 p.m. EST. TWS sent a further email acknowledging Kroger’s response but also pointing out that the abortion drug webpage was still live. Several minutes later, Kroger responded, stating, “The link that you are using is old.” By 8 a.m. the following morning, the mifepristone listing was removed.
While the abortion pill has been available in the U.S. since 2000, the Biden administration has been steadily loosening restrictions on its use, removing the in-person requirement for prescribing the drug in December 2021 and allowing retail pharmacies to dispense it in January of 2023. The Biden administration has taken these actions despite the documented dangers they pose to the health of women and their babies, say experts, including the danger of failing to detect a potentially fatal ectopic pregnancy or detect Rh sensitivity that could jeopardize a woman’s future pregnancies.
Other health hazards associated with the abortion drug include “severe bleeding, infection, retained fetal parts, the need for emergency surgery, and even death. Women may also experience cramping, bleeding, hemorrhage requiring transfusions, nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, abdominal pain, and headache. Bleeding may continue for up to 30 days.”
Soon after Biden’s Food and Drug Administration announced that retail pharmacies could dispense the abortion pill in January 2023, Kroger along with other major retailers received a letter from 19 state attorneys general warning the companies that they would be violating federal law if they send abortion pills through the mail. But Democratic lawmakers like Senator Richard Blumenthal (Conn.) fired off their own letter in March 2023 demanding that Kroger and other retailers ignore the state AGs and “expand access” to the drug. A year later, CVS and Walgreens both began dispensing the pills, with Sam’s Club joining the list at some point this month.
After having quietly followed suit and offering the abortion pill on its site for an unknown period of time, Kroger has apparently backtracked in the wake of press coverage of the listing.
Mary Szoch, director of the Center for Human Dignity at Family Research Council, welcomed the news.
“I’m so grateful for the clarification from Kroger that they are not selling the abortion drug, mifepristone,” she told TWS. “It doesn’t make sense for grocery stores to be abortion businesses. The two just don’t go together. Because of this clarification, you’ll definitely see my kids and I zooming around the store this week in their steering wheel cart!”
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Dan Hart is senior editor at The Washington Stand.