On January 26 Jean Crocco, retired nurse and small Walgreens stockholder, gave copies of the following statement to a Walgreens staff person at the Walgreens Boots Alliance meeting at Pelican Hill luxury golf resort, just down the coast from Newport Beach. She was not allowed into the board meeting.

“Walgreens is a trusted name. It represents health. I have shopped at my neighborhood Walgreens in all the places I have lived, starting with Chicago almost 50 years ago. I decided to open a Robinhood account a few years ago I bought Walgreens Boots Alliance stock.

“My name is Jean Crocco. I am a retired registered nurse. I have worked for over 20 years with the Pro-Life Action League: first as a volunteer, then as a part-time employee for 10 years. My job is primarily investigation of abortion clinics through health department inspections….

“There are many reasons for Walgreens to not enter the abortion business, and yes, abortion is a business.

“You will have to deal with the negative publicity of being an abortion provider.

“You may have to endure pickets and boycotts.

“And these are because abortion is a moral issue. Mifepristone was developed for the sole purpose of killing an unborn child who is already settled in the womb. It has no other purpose.

“But the issue I want to bring before you is the moral crisis that will ensue in many of your pharmacists and other employees who will be involved in dispensing the Mifepristone.

“The customary way Mifepristone is administered is to swallow the pill in the presence of the provider. That is to prevent diversion, which is a whole different problem with the pills. When the pharmacist gives the woman the pills she is an active abortionist. If she is Roman Catholic she is automatically excommunicated due to the grave sin. Many Protestants also consider abortion to be a very serious sin, akin to murder. Will you allow your pharmacists an ethical opt out?

“I speak from experience. As a new RN in 1975 I was put in a position to administer IM Prostaglandins used in experimental mid-trimester abortions. The researcher tried to intimidate me, then ridicule me, into giving the shots. I refused. So did the other RN on duty on our OB floor. The researcher ended up doing the injections herself, but when the woman delivered her dead baby in the bed I was there. I saw that baby – a beautiful, perfectly formed baby, perfectly dead. I cried and cried and just wanted to die for what I’d seen. The next morning my supervisor called me at home and said, “I heard what happened last night, Jean. Please don’t quit.” I didn’t quit then; I waited 3 months and quit, and had no intention to ever work anywhere again that did abortions. And I haven’t. That one experience turned me into a pro-life activist. I was fortunate that the hospital I worked at allowed for conscientious objection. Will you?

“Each of your pharmacists will have to decide if delivering a lethal drug to a pregnant woman is what they want to be engaged in. They will find that being ‘pro-choice’ in theory is vastly different than providing the pills. I can foresee strife among the staff- avoiding being the one to hand out the pills or feeling resentful always being asked to be the one who does. Abortion does not make for good teamwork. Each person in the chain bears the responsibility of providing abortion. You will not find any other prescription like unto it in the way it affects your staff.

“Some of you may think, ‘Well, it’s only first trimester abortions. Not much to see here.’ That is not true. Planned Parenthood and other abortion providers have been stretching the gestational ages for their medical abortions. Keisha Atkins died in a third-trimester abortion. She was part of a trial to see if mifepristone would shorten the labor for these abortions. (It did not, but she died.). Until I read her autopsy and medical records (posted by her family) I had no idea that mifepristone would be used that late in pregnancy. This also happened in the UK during the lockdowns, although I’m not aware of any deaths of the mother, just of the well-formed children. The late first-trimester children aborted in the mifepristone regimen are large enough to see and recognize in their expulsion, if that makes a difference to you. To me, all children have value regardless of size.

“Lastly, I address you, the directors of Walgreens Boots Aliance. Your participation in bringing a human pesticide into your stores has moral consequences and you are as guilty of participating in abortion as the abortionist who disarticulates the larger children and removes them piece by piece while they yet live and suffer. You will also find that abortion dehumanizes you. I would wish better for you.

“Just because abortion is legal does not mean everyone has to accept it as good. Abortion clinics and abortionists have a well deserved bad reputation. I hope Walgreens does not become a part of that.

“I would offer a resolution, ‘Resolved- Walgreens Boots Alliance will not engage in dispensing abortion medications.’ “