The battle over the mailing of abortion pills arrived at the FedEx boardroom this week as pro-life activists fight to curtail the mailing of the deadly drug across the country.
A group of pro-life shareholders on Monday urged FedEx to investigate the use of its services to mail the abortion pill. Introduced at the FedEx annual meeting, a shareholder resolution brought by pro-life investors argued that the shipping giant faces legal and reputational risks if activists use its services to ship abortion pills.
The resolution was the latest effort by pro-lifers to fight back against the widespread availability of the abortion pill. Abortion pills can easily be accessed across the country, even in red states, thanks to loosening FDA regulations and activist groups that ship the drugs through the mail. Even though more than 20 states ban medication abortions, the pills are still being shipped across borders with no legal consequences.
As the deadly drugs are shipped across the country, pro-lifers have turned their attention to stopping the flow. This has included efforts to sue the FDA over its relaxation of abortion pill guidelines and urging the federal government to enforce the 1873 Comstock Act, which banned the mailing of abortion medications.
While the FedEx board opposed the pro-life shareholder resolution, the proposal’s fate will not be known until later this week after the votes are tallied. Authored by the Alliance Defending Freedom, the resolution was introduced by Pia de Solenni, the vice president of corporate engagement of Catholic capital advisory firm IWP Capital.
“FedEx prohibits the shipment of Kinder Surprise Eggs,” she told The Daily Wire. “If the company can prohibit a candy toy, it can prohibit a drug that violates the law in more than 20 states and has harmed a growing number of women, not to mention destroyed countless human lives.”
Kinder Surprise Eggs are banned in the United States over concerns that young children could choke on the small toy hidden inside the chocolate candy. FedEx lists the candy as a prohibited shipping item.
The pro-life resolution urged FedEx to issue a report in the next year “evaluating how it oversees risks related to distributing mail-order abortion drugs such as mifepristone and detailing any strategies beyond litigation and legal compliance the company may deploy to mitigate these risks.”
In a public response to the proposal, the board of FedEx said that it did not find it “practicable” or “a good use of company resources, given its broad scope.”
“If adopted as proposed, the proposal would result in unnecessary expense and burdens with limited benefit to our stockholders,” the board said.
The board argued that FedEx has “robust risk management” already in place, adding it is “committed to operating in compliance with applicable laws and regulations and maintaining robust policies and procedures designed to support lawful and ethical business operations.”
A similar proposal from the faith-based Inspire Investing was previously introduced, seeking UPS to consider risks with the abortion pill.
Indiana Attorney General Todd Rokita has called for both FedEx and UPS to establish clear prohibitions on the shipping of abortion drugs. Indiana is one of the states where medication abortions are technically against the law.
“FedEx and UPS maintain explicit restrictions on the shipment of numerous items that are illegal under federal or state law,” Rokita told The Daily Wire. “It is indefensible that these companies do not have similar restrictions on the dangerous abortion drug mifepristone, which is illegal to ship under Indiana law, federal law, and the laws of many other states.”
Ryan Bangert, the senior vice president for strategic initiatives at Alliance Defending Freedom, told The Daily Wire that FedEx and other carriers may take a different approach if the federal government actively enforced the Comstock laws.
“I think that there’s a good reason why the government should look at enforcing the Comstock Act as it applied to these killer drugs,” he said. “I think there’s every reason to think if the federal government took a more aggressive and towards a posture with respect to a law that’s already on the books that common carriers would take that threat more seriously.”
Bangert said that Alliance Defending Freedom planned to continue pushing companies to consider taking more steps to prevent their services from being used to distribute abortion pills.
“We’re going to continue to have dialogue with the company, as well as other common carriers who are in the business of shipping materials across state borders that may include mifepristone and alert them to the risks that are posed,” he said.
.png)
.png)
