Filmmaker Michael Moore called on Americans to "picket" their local Walgreens pharmacies and take their business elsewhere after the company announced it will not sell the abortion-inducing drug mifepristone in the 20 states where GOP attorneys general have warned of legal consequences.
Led by Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey, the group of Republican attorneys general wrote, in a letter to Walgreens, that "many people are not aware that federal law expressly prohibits using the mail to send or receive any drug that will 'be used or applied for producing abortion.'"
The letter referenced the Comstock Act, an 1873 law which prohibited individuals or companies from sending materials then deemed "pornographic" through the mail.
The law also contains language prohibiting the mailing of "any article or thing designed or intended for the prevention of conception or procuring of an abortion."
The threat of legal action follows the overturning of Roe v. Wade in June by the Supreme Court, which sent the question of abortion back to the states to decide.
"Please join with me and others in a NATIONWIDE BOYCOTT OF WALGREENS," Moore wrote on his web site. "They must reverse their decision immediately. They must acknowledge that nearly 70% of all Americans believe this legal prescription be made easily available to all women — and that the vast majority of Americans still support Roe v Wade."
He urged people to let Walgreens know they have taken their business elsewhere and said people should inform the other pharmacy chains that the same thing will happen to them if they adopt a similar position.
"Picket your local Walgreens," Moore said. "Tell the White House to stand strong, and let your members of Congress know this is one of your top issues in deciding how you will vote next year."
Noting that two-thirds of the justices are "baptized Catholics," Moore railed against the Supreme Court and the ruling that struck down Roe, which he alleges is "not based on law or science but based in their own medieval beliefs and authoritarian religion which excludes all women from holding any position of power."
"For over two millennia this rabid patriarchy has brought great harm to women, successfully keeping billions on this planet 'in their place,' " he wrote. "The United States was founded as a secular country with a clear separation of 'church and state' with no official state religion."
"This Court's actions have solidified their role as our Taliban, our Church of England, our Spanish Inquisition," he continued. "We are now forced to fight our way out of this religious ruling where the majority gender in a democracy must shut the eff up and make that fertilized egg into a baby — or else."