Jerry Bowyer: The bottom line of selling mifepristone

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: Today is Tuesday, August 20th. Good morning! This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Myrna Brown.

NICK EICHER, HOST: And I’m Nick Eicher.

SOUND: [DEMONSTRATIONS IN CHICAGO]

Demonstrators in Chicago dressed as the abortion pill combo misoprostol and mifepristone, a costume that makes the wearers appear as walking tablets.

Meanwhile, a local Planned Parenthood affiliate offered vasectomies and abortion pills for free yesterday and today in honor of the Democratic Convention. Turns out interest was so great that the mobile clinic was all booked up. No appointments left.

BROWN: That’s Chicago. Across the country, though, major retailers are facing pressure to offer chemical abortion in their communities. WORLD Opinions Commentator Jerry Bowyer now on a method of market pushback.

JERRY BOWYER: Last week, I joined a coalition of investors and asset managers who sent a letter urging Costco, Walmart, Kroger, and other pharmacies to think long and hard before caving in to pressure tactics urging them to sell the abortion drug mifepristone. Chief among the pressure groups is New York City’s pension plan and its comptroller, Brad Lander, who has been using the assets of the city’s pensioners to cajole the companies to sell the controversial and risky pill.

According to Lander, investor “concerns include the company’s responsiveness to a growing market opportunity, its mitigation of potential reputational risks, and its commitment to maximizing sales and long-term shareholder value.” What investors is he talking about? All the pressure to sell the drug is coming from political actors, not financial ones. That’s because the business case for the drug is pitifully weak, and the case against it is strong.

Let’s do a quick back-of-the-envelope calculation. Thanks to Walter Billingsley, the chief financial officer of the American Family Association, for providing the numbers. Mifepristone sells for roughly $200. That is, tragically, a one-time thing. Costco averages roughly $3,000 in revenue per customer per year. The average household is 2.5 people. So, for a Costco member, the average per capita spending is roughly $1,200. Over 10 years, that’s $12,000. The grim mathematics of abortifacients show that Costco can monetize one death for $200, or it can hope to enjoy revenues on $12,000 of sales over 10 years, or $7,000 in present value.

In short, life is more financially valuable than death. How could it be otherwise? The data will vary somewhat from company to company, but the principle holds. A company can sell the stuff of death once or it can sell the stuff of life for many years: diapers, Pedialyte, Vicks VapoRub, bigger diapers, antibiotics for toddlers’ ear infections, shoes, vaccinations, Halloween outfits, candy, Band-Aids, bigger shoes, Wiffle balls and bats, still bigger shoes, and on it goes. It doesn’t take a degree in finance to know that $7,000 in revenue is better than $200 in revenue, even if New York City’s chief financial officer fails to grasp it.

Retailers need to take a moment and think hard before stepping into the most divisive issue of our time. They need to consider the reality that the drug is entirely outlawed in many states and partly outlawed in others. And remember, mifepristone’s availability in the retail setting was rushed through the Food and Drug Administration’s approval process by the Biden administration despite serious health risks and so far has survived a Supreme Court challenge only on the technicality of legal standing, not the substance of the issue.

And the bottom line is that capitalist economies need people. People produce goods and services and people purchase goods and services. The current labor shortage, looming pension crises, and lackluster growth testify to the reality that family formation and childrearing are the only proper foundations on which the capitalistic system can function.

I’m Jerry Bowyer.

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