The legitimate function of any pharmacy is as a conduit facilitating the private, confidential, professional medical relationship between patient and physician. It patently is unethical for a pharmacy to compromise, to jeopardise or otherwise to interfere with that relationship. Yet Wal-Mart, the largest retailer in the world, with more than 2,400 pharmacies in the United States, has done exactly that, by interjecting politics into the patient-physician relationship, and making that inviolable relationship subservient and secondary to Wal-Mart's corporate politics.
In 1998, the Food and Drug Administration approved the use of emergency contraception by prescription. It currently is available through Gynetics Inc. under the brand name Preven (levonorgestrel 0.25 mg/ethinyl estradiol 0.05 mg USP). Wal-Mart unilaterally decided to ban this legal, safe drug from all its pharmacies. This is an unconscionable act of politicising medical practise and resources, which leads to disastrous consequences every time it is committed. Even Wal-Mart spokesperson Jessica Moser admitted, "I know of no other prescription in the history of Wal-Mart that the company has refused to sell."
For playing politics with and meddling in the health, welfare and safety of its customers, Wal-Mart rightly deserves to be boycotted. Even if you feel you can not afford not to shop at Wal-Mart generally, you certainly and easily can afford not to patronise its pharmacy. There are many other pharmacies locally ready, willing and able to meet or to beat Wal-Mart's prescription and over-the-counter drug prices.