Conservative groups are planning national demonstrations to protest pharmacies selling abortion pills.
Politico reported that anti-abortion advocates are planning to picket outside CVS and Walgreens stores in early February in eight cities, including Washington, D.C.
The Food and Drug Administration last week said that all pharmacies will be allowed to offer abortion pills if they comply with specific regulations. National chains CVS and Walgreens plan to stock and dispense abortion pills in states where they're legal.
The pills have become the most popular method for terminating a pregnancy in the U.S., Politico reported, and people from states where abortion is banned can travel to another state to purchase the drugs.
Politico also reported that members of the Republican-led U.S. House on Wednesday will present a bill that will expand the rights of pharmacists to refuse to fill prescriptions for the pills.
The planned anti-abortion demonstrations are expected to utilize the same behavior – chants, signs, confrontations – seen by groups outside abortion clinics, Politico said.
Progressive groups also used public demonstrations before and after June's Supreme Court ruling that overturned the Roe v. Wade decision that legalized abortion nationally.
At least 16 Democratic Party members of Congress were arrested in July for protesting outside of the U.S. Supreme Court Building.
The anti-abortion protests will occur at the same time as a call-in campaign and planned national boycott of the pharmacy chains.
"We want people to be uncomfortable going into a CVS that has a demonstration going on and to consider going to a different pharmacy," Caroline Smith, a leader of the group Progressive Anti-Abortion Uprising, told Politico.
"We also want to put enough pressure on the companies to retract this decision and not get certified to sell abortion pills."
As pending lawsuits seek to ban the pills use nationwide, conservatives also are threatening legal action against pharmacies that opt to dispense the drug.
"If Walgreens wants to learn anything from more than 50 years of our abortion activism, it's that we will not give up," Kristi Hamrick, the vice president of policy for Students for Life of America, told Politico. "They should be concerned about the kind of liability they will face."
Pharmacies in 18 states are barred from dispensing the drugs, either because abortion is illegal or because patients only can get the pills directly from a physician, and more Republican-controlled states are expected to enact pill-specific restrictions this year, Politico said.
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