FedEx Faces Scrutiny for Shipping Abortion Pill to States That Ban it

Articles | October 7, 2026 | by Catholics for Catholics

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By Elizabeth Gresosky

During FedEx’s annual meeting on September 28, the Diocese of Fort Worth, Texas pressed the company on its shipping of mifepristone, the abortion pill that is banned in twenty states.

The diocese apparently owns at least $25,000 in stock value, and as such, had the ability to officially submit a proposal for consideration. 

The proposal referenced the Comstock Act which prohibits carrier companies like FedEx from transporting “any ‘drug, medicine,… designed, adapted, or intended for producing abortion.’ This outlaws shipping abortion drugs like mifepristone from and to anyone and could apply anywhere in the supply chain.”

The diocese’s proposal stated that “the Board of Directors of FedEx should evaluate the legal and reputational risk associated with participating in the distribution of mail-order abortion drugs such as mifepristone and consider not participating in such distribution chain going forward. To do otherwise exposes FedEx to significant legal and reputational risk and potential criminal liability.”

The FedEx Board of Directors unanimously urged stockholders to vote against the proposal.

“The Board of Directors has considered this proposal and concluded that its adoption is unnecessary and not in the best interests of our stockholders,” the board wrote. 

In a bulleted list entitled “Why We Recommend You Vote Against This Proposal,” the board listed the following reasons:

• We are committed to operating in compliance with applicable laws and regulations and maintaining robust policies and procedures designed to support lawful and ethical business operations. 
• The Board believes that the Company’s robust risk management processes already in place are appropriate and sufficient to address potential risks raised in the proposal, without conducting additional analyses or reporting. 
• We believe the reporting called for in this proposal is neither practicable nor a good use of Company resources, given its broad scope. If adopted as proposed, the proposal would result in unnecessary expense and burdens with limited benefit to our stockholders.

The shareholders then had the ability to vote; 96.4% of them (179,575,057) voted against the proposal.