Walgreens, "abortion pills," and philosophical consistency

 One of the more interesting news developments towards the end of the week was the announcement by Walgreens that their pharmacies would no longer sell "abortion pills," even where they remain legal.  The decision is a response to pressure from conservative activists who assert that, while legal, abortion in general-- and hence the abortion pill, too-- is immoral.  The response from the pro-choice side has been interesting.  Their response has boiled down to the following observation.  Abortion in these states remains legal, and that it is improper for Walgreens to bow to a pressure campaign given that abortion remains, in those states, legal.  Let us consider.

X is a legal product.  It is legal to produce X.  It is legal to sell X.  It is legal to buy X.  It is legal to possess or use X.  An activist group pressures a major retailer to stop selling X because that ideologically motivated activist group believes that X should be excised (sorry) from society.  The major retailer complies, even though this is a divisive proposition, and X remains legal.  I have not told you what X is.  By not telling you what X is, we conduct this thought experiment from behind John Rawls's veil of ignorance.  Yeah, my man, John Rawls.  He is, as always, a wonderful way to check the consistency of your beliefs and the coherence of your principles.

What do you think of this?  Retailers have incentives to respond to market forces, and if they come under sufficient pressure, from non-governmental actors, they still must comply.  Pressure does not have to be governmental, nor does power.  Make of that what you will, and never give me that nonsense about corporate overlords.  Rather, there are two questions.  How do you evaluate an activist movement to convince retailers not to sell other people a good you don't like, and how do you evaluate retailer compliance from a philosophical perspective?

There is, of course, a certain good I am not mentioning, because I'm not gonna say it.  You probably know which one, and left-wing political activists convinced certain retailers to stop selling such goods, even though they are legal, and even though the decision was divisive, because left-wing activists do not want those goods sold.  Sometimes a shoe meets another foot, and one must evaluate methods and principles.

The argument that pro-choice activists are using right now is that the abortion pill is legal, and that it is therefore inappropriate for pro-life activists to pressure a major retailer to stop selling it, and for that retailer to comply.  If the legality of the good determines the legitimacy of the tactic and the propriety of the retailer's compliance, then the left would have to go back and re-evaluate their own tactics.

Blind Blake, "C C Pill Blues."