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Fort Worth Diocese Urges FedEx to Analyze Abortion Pill Shipping Risks
Confirmed
In Short: The diocese’s proposal did not ask FedEx to stop shipping the drug, but rather to analyze the regulatory and reputational risks of continuing to ship mifepristone into states where abortion is illegal.
Bishop Michael Olson of the Fort Worth Diocese wrote to other bishops urging them to vote on a proposal to ask FedEx to assess the legal and reputational risks of shipping mifepristone, one of the key drugs used in the abortion pill regimen.
The proposal, sponsored by the Diocese of Fort Worth, Texas, was presented at FedEx’s annual shareholder meeting on May 28.
Catholic investors are concerned that FedEx may be violating federal law by mailing abortion drugs to states that restrict abortion, citing the Comstock Act, which criminalizes the mailing of items intended to induce abortion.
Olson wrote in his letter that the proposal is part of the process of exercising stewardship over the diocese’s public equities and an opportunity to further the culture of life.
The Department of Justice under the Biden administration issued a memorandum opinion in December 2022 stating that the Comstock Act does not prohibit the mailing of certain drugs that can be used to perform abortions where the sender lacks the intent that the recipient of the drugs will use them unlawfully.
However, the Comstock Act is still law and could be interpreted and enforced more vigorously by this or a future administration, according to Pia de Solenni, who presented the proposal on the diocese’s behalf.
De Solenni said the proposal was the only one to which FedEx responded, calling it a unique opportunity to slow down the distribution of abortion drugs.
Olson said that Bishop Daniel Thomas of Toledo, Ohio, chairman of the bishops’ Committee on Pro-Life Activities, was supportive of the proposal, which Olson said is part of their whole strategy as a diocese to live by Rerum Novarum, Pope Leo XIII’s encyclical published in 1891.
Final votes had not been tallied when the diocese spoke with EWTN News.
What's confirmed
- Bishop Michael Olson of the Fort Worth Diocese wrote to other bishops urging them to vote on a proposal to ask FedEx to assess the legal and reputational risks of shipping mifepristone, one of the key drugs used in the abortion pill regimen.
- The proposal, sponsored by the Diocese of Fort Worth, Texas, was presented at FedEx’s annual shareholder meeting on May 28.
- Catholic investors are concerned that FedEx may be violating federal law by mailing abortion drugs to states that restrict abortion, citing the Comstock Act, which criminalizes the mailing of items intended to induce abortion.
- Olson wrote in his letter that the proposal is part of the process of exercising stewardship over the diocese’s public equities and an opportunity to further the culture of life.
- The Department of Justice under the Biden administration issued a memorandum opinion in December 2022 stating that the Comstock Act does not prohibit the mailing of certain drugs that can be used to perform abortions where the sender lacks the intent that the recipient of the drugs will use them unlawfully.
- However, the Comstock Act is still law and could be interpreted and enforced more vigorously by this or a future administration, according to Pia de Solenni, who presented the proposal on the diocese’s behalf.
- De Solenni said the proposal was the only one to which FedEx responded, calling it a unique opportunity to slow down the distribution of abortion drugs.
- Olson said that Bishop Daniel Thomas of Toledo, Ohio, chairman of the bishops’ Committee on Pro-Life Activities, was supportive of the proposal, which Olson said is part of their whole strategy as a diocese to live by Rerum Novarum, Pope Leo XIII’s encyclical published in 1891.
- Final votes had not been tallied when the diocese spoke with EWTN News.
What's still developing
- The Food and Drug Administration, meanwhile, stopped enforcing its in-person dispensing rule for mifepristone in April 2021 for the rest of the COVID emergency, and in December of that same year said it would permanently drop that requirement, allowing the drug to be prescribed and shipped to a patient without an office visit.
- Olson wrote that “Sadly, since the overturning of Roe v. Wade with the Dobbs decision in 2022, abortion rates in the United States have increased about 20%, due largely to the government’s decision to relax the rules around the distribution” of abortion drugs.
- She said the company “only does corporate engagement with a Christian understanding of human flourishing” based on the bishops’ Socially Responsible Investment Guidelines, first published in 1991, revised in 2003, and updated in 2021.
- “It is challenging to get a proposal on a ballot in the first place,” she said.
- “If Christian institutional investors would show up, we would be changing these companies,” she said.
- It did not ask the company to stop shipping the drug.
- Passed by Congress in 1873, the law criminalized using the postal system to send obscene, lewd, or indecent materials; information or devices related to contraception; and items or information intended to induce abortion.
- The Diocese of Fall River, Mass., announced Friday that Msgr.
- “As a result of the accusations, I have to take a leave of absence as National Director of the Pontifical Missions Societies and return to the Diocese of Fall River and submit to all of the restrictions that bishops normally put on any priest accused of anything whatsoever: no public Masses, no preaching, asking permission any time I leave the diocese, not being able to hear confessions or give spiritual direction,” he said.
- A priest of the Diocese of Fall River, Landry was educated at Harvard before entering seminary and trained for the priesthood at the Pontifical North American College in Rome.
- In addition to being slated to serve as a key coordinator for the liturgy of the beatification, Landry had been scheduled to provide live television commentary on events around the beatification for EWTN, and was listed as a guest of honor at a gala dinner the Diocese of Peoria for the 2026 Sheen Awards in honor of Fulton Sheen.