On Thursday, Costco said it would not begin stocking the abortion medication mifepristone at its more than 500 pharmacies, and conservative groups declared victory following a yearlong pressure campaign. Whether the groups are actually responsible for the wholesale chain’s decision is unclear, but they are framing it as a success and pledging to target retailers that already dispense the drug, which would be a blow to abortion access.

In August 2024, a coalition including far-right law firm Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) and Inspire Investing — which bills itself as “empowering Christian investors through biblically responsible investing” — sent letters to Costco, Walmart, Kroger, Albertsons and McKesson urging them not to start dispensing mifepristone. The letter to Costco in particular claimed that 6,000 members signed a petition for it not to stock the drug, implying that they might take their business elsewhere.

A coalition including far-right law firm Alliance Defending Freedom and Inspire Investing — which bills itself as “empowering Christian investors through biblically responsible investing” — sent letters to Costco, Walmart, Kroger, Albertsons and McKesson urging them not to start dispensing mifepristone.

In a statement shared with BLN, Costco said, “Our position at this time not to sell mifepristone, which has not changed, is based on the lack of demand from our members and other patients, who we understand generally have the drug dispensed by their medical providers.”

The company did not respond to a follow-up question about how it assessed demand for a medication it doesn’t dispense. The potential interest wouldn’t be limited to the chain’s paid members, as nonmembers can fill prescriptions at its pharmacies. It also wouldn’t be cabined to abortions, since mifepristone is used off label to manage miscarriages.

The Washington Post reports that Costco had deliberated for more than a year about whether to offer mifepristone and decided this month not to do so; the paper cites anonymous sources familiar with the conversations.

Still, ADF is taking credit for Costco maintaining the status quo. As the organization’s corporate engagement legal counsel Michael Ross told Bloomberg News“It’s a very significant win and it’s one we hope to build on this coming year.” Ross added that ADF will turn its focus to CVS and Walgreens, which have been dispensing the drug in states where abortion is legal since early 2024.

It’s a relatively recent development that pharmacies could even stock this drug, which is typically used alongside misoprostol to end an early pregnancy, and conservatives are trying everything they can to shove the genie back in the bottle.

Mifepristone has long been overregulated in the U.S., and for two decades after its approval, the medication had to be dispensed in person by the health care provider who prescribed it. The Covid pandemic led to prescriptions via telemedicine that could be fulfilled by mail-order pharmacies, a change made permanent in late 2021. Then, in January 2023, the Food and Drug Administration said for the first time that brick-and-mortar pharmacies could dispense the drug. CVS and Walgreens swiftly announced plans to stock the medication in states where it was legal.

A month later, 20 Republican attorneys general wrote to CVS and Walgreens and claimed that they might be in violation of a federal law known as the Comstock Act, an anti-obscenity statute passed in 1873. Conservatives have argued that the long-dormant law prohibits sending abortion-causing drugs and devices through the mail or carriers like UPS and FedEx. But the same day as the pharmacy change, the Biden administration’s Department of Justice released legal guidance saying that the Comstock Act can’t be enforced against the shipment of abortion drugs as long as the sender doesn’t know the pills will be used illegally.

ADF’s letters to Costco and others cited the AGs’ claims on Comstock, and lobbed a threat that a change in administration could result in federal prosecutions should the retailers begin stocking mifepristone. “Last year, 20 attorneys general wrote letters advising pharmacies that receiving and dispensing the drug by mail is expressly prohibited by the Comstock Act and many state laws. Violating the Comstock Act alone carries a prison sentence of up to ten years,” the letters read. “The statute of limitations is five years, so the current political leadership at the U.S. Department of Justice cannot provide you cover if the administration changes parties.”

The bigger picture here is that groups like ADF are not satisfied with only conservative-led states passing abortion bans. Their long-term goal is to ban nearly all abortions nationwide under the 14th Amendmentand they’re hoping that courts will aid them along the way to realizing that project by ruling that the Comstock Act is enforceable, or that the FDA was wrong to allow telemedicine prescriptions, or both.

ADF took a case to the Supreme Court in 2024 from physicians seeking to end telemedicine prescriptions, and while the justices said those plaintiffs didn’t have standing to sue, that litigation continues thanks to three state AGs who joined the case. Missouri AG Andrew Bailey, who organized the letter to CVS and Walgreens, is leading that case. Most of the other AGs who signed the pharmacy letter have also signed an amicus brief supporting the lawsuit.

Abortion pills were used in nearly two-thirds of all documented terminations in the U.S. in 2023, and by the end of 2024, about 1 in 4 abortions were provided via telemedicine. Pharmacies stocking abortion pills would make them more accessible than they already are, which is a threat to conservatives’ current ban-by-a-thousand-cuts strategy.

Abortion pills were used in nearly two-thirds of all documented terminations in the U.S. in 2023.

The Costco pressure campaign underscores that GOP lawmakers and groups like ADF know an abortion ban cannot pass Congress, so they are trying to limit access in other ways, namely by targeting pills and working to shutter clinics. Their goal is to make it so people can only get abortion medication by physically traveling to a shrinking number of clinics, with more set to shutter amid fallout from the GOP budget bill that “defunds” large abortion providers like Planned Parenthood.

Planned Parenthood has said that as many as 200 of its clinics could close as a result of the bill, including 75% of its abortion-providing clinics across 12 states. That’s why the organization calls the law a backdoor abortion ban. Making abortion less accessible functions as an effective ban for some women — all before a possible nationwide ban is in place.

This context is why it’s so disappointing that Costco will not dispense mifepristone, a necessary medication for people who need abortions and people experiencing miscarriages — and one that is set to become increasingly difficult to access. ADF added in a press release after the Bloomberg story that it “applaud[s] Costco for doing the right thing by its shareholders and resisting activist calls to sell abortion drugs.” This isn’t about “selling” abortion pills. It’s about pharmacies being willing to dispense medications that people’s doctors have prescribed them.

The Costco statement said it believed that people “generally” have mifepristone dispensed by their medical providers, not pharmacies. While many people do still receive the pill directly from their doctor either in person or by mailtelemedicine prescriptions are increasingly filled by mail-order pharmacies like Honeybee Healthand of course other pharmacies do dispense the drug. Just not Costco.

Later in the ADF release, the group claimed that dispensing abortion pills is a bad business decision. “Retailers like Costco keep their doors open by selling a lifetime of purchases to families, both large and small,” Ross said. “They have nothing to gain and much to lose by becoming abortion dispensaries. Retail pharmacies exist to serve the health and wellness of their customers, but abortion drugs like mifepristone undermine that mission by putting women’s health at risk.”

Data shows that abortion restrictions are not only bad for people’s healthbut also bad for the economy. The landmark Turnaway Study found that women denied abortions are four times as likely to live below the federal poverty level than women who got care. And in June, the Institute for Women’s Policy Research (IWPR) estimated that the Dobbs decision has led to $64 billion in economic losses each year in the 16 states that ban or heavily restrict abortion. Nationwide, IWPR estimates that bans and other restrictions keep about 550,000 women out of the labor force annually, which is enough to impact GDP, they say.

Corporations may not care about trying to prevent a nationwide abortion access crisis, but they should care about protecting their profits and shareholder value.

SUSPAN goals

Susan Rinkunas is an independent journalist and co-founder of Autonomy News. Her work has appeared in Jezebel, The New Republic, The Guardian, Slate, The Nation and more.

The Cleveland Plain Dealer reported Tuesday that Sherrod Brown, a three-term U.S. senator who lost to Cleveland auto dealer Bernie Moreno in last year’s election, has decided to run for the Senate seat JD Vance had before he was elected vice president. The Plain Dealer quoted Ohio labor leaders who said Brown told them of his plan to run for the seat now occupied by former Ohio Lt. Gov. Jon Husted. Brown, who would give Democrats a chance at reclaiming the Senate, is expected to formally announce his intentions within the next two weeks.

Brown, who would give Democrats a chance at reclaiming the Senate, is expected to formally announce within the next two weeks.

The news doesn’t come as a big surprise. When Brown lost to Moreno, few people in Ohio politics expected the populist Democrat to walk off into the sunset. And the signs of his potential return have been hard to miss. He and his wife relocated to Columbus from the Cleveland area this year, which added to speculation that he was biding his time for a political comeback. When he and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer were seen huddling in a Columbus restaurant in late July, it seemed clear to political insiders Schumer was part of a recruitment campaign to convince Brown to run in 2026.

The news that the 72-year-old Brown is running has been enthusiastically heralded by Ohio Democrats who see it as a recruitment coup for the party in its uphill battle to unseat Husted, who was appointed by Gov. Mike DeWine. Many Ohioans couldn’t tell you who Husted is, but almost everybody knows Brown. After some 50 years in public office, his wide name recognition in the state is undisputed. He’s a Democrat in a red state with a track record of winning against Republicans. Yes, Moreno, a Republican political newcomer, ended Brown’s winning streak last year when he won by about 3.5 percentage points. But President Donald Trump won the state by 11 pointswhich suggests that Brown appealed to a segment of voters who chose Trump. Clearly, Moreno benefited from Trump’s coattails.

Husted cast his lot with the top 10% over the welfare of working Ohioans when he voted for Trump’s debt-ballooning $4 trillion tax cut to the ultra-rich on the backs of the poor. So in 2026, without Trump leading the ticket, Husted could be vulnerable to a well-experienced challenger with a chip on his shoulder who can effectively energize an already highly motivated base to turn out in droves for the midterms. By the time voters go to the polls next year, who knows how much fallout there will have been from the anything but “beautiful bill” Husted supported? But a sufficient number of Ohioans is likely to be fighting mad about sky-high prices, shuttered factories, dropped health insurance, shredded safety nets, gutted public services and a reduction in vital veterans’ support. There’s also likely to be anger at armed military in the streets and sprawling detention centers for immigrants that simulate concentration camps.

Brown will work to make Husted own the pain caused to Ohio families who will lose their SNAP benefits, to Ohio veterans who will be denied care to due to mass staffing cuts and eliminated services, and to the strategically delayed (until after the midterms) Medicaid cuts and work requirements that could leave 440,000 Ohioans uninsured.

Expect him to launch a sustained offensive against Husted’s rubber-stamp endorsement of historic cuts to Medicaid and food assistance.

Expect Brown to lead the charge for human dignity over despair, justice over lawlessness, better outcomes for everyday Americans over what the Trumpian plutocracy offers in scraps to everyone but the favored wealthy. Expect him to launch a sustained offensive against Husted’s rubber-stamp endorsement of historic cuts to Medicaid and food assistance that will be paid for by hundreds of thousands of uninsured and hungry constituents.

But Brown cannot wage the same old-school, play-it-safe campaign he ran in 2024, when even challenger Moreno mocked him publicly for his timidity to make waves. He cannot pull punches. He cannot misread the moment or the mindset of rank-and-file Democrats, independents and Never-Trumpers who are screaming for bold, authentic, tell-it-like-it-is fighters to save the country. They have had it with play-by-the-book, norms-abiding, feckless politicians who talk like infuriating politicians. If Brown can make it personal with Ohio voters who feel betrayed by Husted and his party, who are drowning in the cost of living, struggling to afford tariff-inflated groceries, utilities, out-of-pocket medical care and ever rising rent on incomes stretched to the max, he can win.

If he can make it personal with Ohio farmers reeling from Trump’s funding cuts to promised subsidies and market-destroying tariffs slapped on key trading partners, he can broaden his appeal in rural communities. If he can make it personal about growing numbers of children and seniors denied food aid in the bill Husted endorsedhe can make empathy a call for action. If he can make it personal on immigrants Ohioans know and respect being treated like dogs as masked thugs raid farms and Home Depot parking lots to stuff them into unmarked vans to be disappeared, he can be a welcomed voice for humanity, decency and the rule of law to forcefully counter a lawless Trump regime Husted supports.

Ohio Demcorats haven’t cultivated a farm team of young, communications-savvy Democrats who can win a statewide election. Thus, Brown is the only real chance Democrats have against Husted. In addition to having to defend the big, awful bill to constituents on the losing end of unpaid-for giveaways to the wealthiest Americans, Husted, a former state lawmaker, will also have to defend himself from the stench of being associated with a bribery scandal that involved the utility company FirstEnergy spending $61 million for a $1 billion bailout and resulted in a former Republican Ohio House Speaker being sentenced to 20 years in federal prison.

Text messages between a FirstEnergy CEO and a vice president who have since been charged in an alleged federal racketeering conspiracy related to the bribery scandal include descriptions of phone conversations they say they had with Husted about the legislation— some he apparently initiated — and reveal that they considered him the lawmaker handling the details of the bailout legislation. Husted, who was never charged with a crime, has said he didn’t know about any bribes regarding the bailout legislation that he helped get passed.

If Brown taps into the growing movement demanding a course correction, raises enough money to compete with the ton of cash coming Husted’s way and reminds voters why they sent him to the U.S. Senate three times before, he could well return to the upper chamber on Capitol Hill in a blue-wave election. But “if” is doing a lot of heavy lifting here. Husted has to be considered the favorite. A Brown win would be an upset.

Marila Johanek

Marilou Johanek is a veteran Ohio print and broadcast journalist who has covered state and national politics in addition to early writing and producing stints at CBS News and BLN. The Ohio native has also analyzed policymaking and political players as a longtime newspaper editorial writer and columnist. She is currently a weekly columnist for the Ohio Capital Journal, which is part of States Newsroom, the nation’s largest state-focused nonprofit news organization.