We convinced two major national corporations, Wal-Mart and the Kroger Co., to stop blocking women's access to the Plan B® emergency contraceptive, often called the "morning-after" pill.

Winning a Battle Against Wal-Mart

In February 2006, three brave women in Massachusetts stepped up and filed a lawsuit against Wal-Mart for its discriminatory policy against stocking Plan B®.

NARAL Pro-Choice Massachusetts, in partnership with NARAL Pro-Choice America Foundation, supported the lawsuit and sent a letter to Wal-Mart CEO H. Lee Scott, Jr., urging him to reverse the policy. We also launched a national grassroots campaign that inspired 31,176 of our activists to sign a petition calling on the retail giant to end this discrimination. The pressure worked.

In a matter of weeks, Wal-Mart released the following statement: "We expect more states to require us to sell emergency contraceptives in the months ahead.  Because of this, and the fact that this is an FDA-approved product, we feel it is difficult to justify being the country's only major pharmacy chain not selling it."

Convincing the Kroger Co. to do the Right Thing

In late 2006, after the Food and Drug Administration approved over-the-counter access to Plan B® for adults, numerous reports indicated that some national pharmacy chains were failing to guarantee women's access to this emergency contraceptive.

In the spring of 2007, one woman stepped forward to tell her story and made a huge difference in showing the obstacles women were facing at pharmacy counters across the county. Carrie Baker, a 42-year-old mother of two, called NARAL Pro-Choice America after she couldn't obtain Plan B® at her local Kroger pharmacy in Georgia. We executed a strategic communications plan that helped Baker's story garner media attention, including coverage on MSNBC and by the Associated Press. Kroger received thousands of messages from our activists calling on the corporation to change its policy.

After negotiations with NARAL Pro-Choice America Foundation, the Kroger Co., which operates 31 stores in 19 states, agreed to require all of its pharmacies to stock Plan B® and have an on-site employee dispense it to any customer who asks. They even provided an "800" number for our activists in case they experienced problems.

The Wal-Mart and Kroger Co. victories were part of our ongoing Prevention First initiative (PDF - 348kb).