Filmmaker, author, and activist Michael Moore has called for the boycott of Walgreens after the chain announced that it would no longer be selling abortion pills in 20 states across the US.
Republican state attorney generals from the 20 states wrote to Walgreens, threatening to take legal action against the corporation if it continued to sell mifepristone in their pharmacies.
Walgreens announced on Thursday, March 2, that it would no longer be selling the abortion pill in the 20 states and will also not ship it to consumers in those states.
After the announcement was made, Moore urged readers on his website to boycott Walgreens, saying that they were a pharmacy chain that stood with “anti-abortion extremists” and they were against women’s rights.
Moore wrote that Walgreen’s decision to classify women as second-class citizens must be met with force, adding that people would enable misogyny and bigotry if they did not speak out about Thursday’s announcement.
The filmmaker asked people to join him in a nationwide boycott of the pharmacy chain, saying that Walgreens must reverse its decision.
Moore also included pictures of the letters sent by the attorney generals to stores across the country, including Walgreens, Rite Aid, CVS, Costco, and Kroger. According to Moore, the state attorney generals based their aggressive tactics on the Comstock Act of 1873, which made sending obscene items through mail illegal.
Talking about the Comstock Act, Moore said that when it was done, preventing pregnancy was considered obscene because women had no control of their lives as it was illegal for them to own any property, have a bank account or even get a loan.
Moore urged people to picket their local Walgreens and let their Congress members know that it was one of the issues that would decide how they would vote in the coming elections.
Moore slammed the Supreme Court justices who decided to overturn Roe v. Wade, saying that they based their decision on Christianity. He said the Supreme Court decision forced people to fight a religious ruling.
The FDA approved mifepristone in 2000 to terminate pregnancies in combination with misoprostol.