On March 26, the day the Supreme Court hears oral arguments in a major abortion pill case (FDA v. Alliance for Hippcratic Medicine Medicine), pro-lifers across the country will protest Walgreens and CVS locations to oppose their recent announcement that the chains will begin to sell abortion pills.
If you haven’t yet, you can sign on to lead a protest here!
Below you will find tools to help you plan your protest in conjunction with the nationwide effort. The resources are divided into four main sections:
- Choosing Your Protest Location
- Promoting Your Protest
- Signs and Banners for Your Protest
- Literature for Your Protest
- Earning Media Coverage of Your Protest
Choosing Your Protest Location
Walgreens and CVS stores are everywhere, which will likely give you many options to choose from when selecting your protest location. In fact, in some places, you can even protest both a Walgreens and a CVS store at the same intersection as some groups have done in the past!
Choose a store that is in a highly trafficked area, and one with high foot traffic—especially if you plan to distribute literature.
Many pharmacies are located on private property, but almost all will have some kind of public way along the edge of the property. If your pharmacy is set back from the road with a parking lot around it, the parking lot is almost certainly private property.
You are free to enter the parking lot and even distribute literature to customers entering the store, but if representatives of the store ask you to leave, you will need to leave their parking lot and go to public property along the edge of the parking lot.
Typically, public property can be ascertained by looking for public facilities like sidewalks, power and phone line poles, and utility boxes. For more tips, see the module from the Pro-Life Action League, Learn to Distinguish Public Property from Private Property.
Promoting Your Protest
Time is short for planning this event, so you’ll want to alert all your local pro-life contacts about your protest ASAP once you’ve chosen a time and Walgreens or CVS location.
Use the email template provided below, and be sure to replace all the text in brackets [LIKE THIS] with your own details.
You can also promote your protest with phone calls, announcements at meetings of church groups or other clubs, community calendars on your local radio stations, and anywhere else you can think of to spread the word.
You can also create an event page on Facebook and promote your protest through other social media sites as well.
Signs and Banners for your Protest
Especially on the short timeline we have for this protest, making your own signs with markers and posterboard can be one of the best ways to create eye-catching signage for your protest.
Be sure to use highly contrasting colors for your background and text (white letters on a dark background, or dark letters on a light colored background) and VERY short slogans like “WALGREENS: SAY NO TO ABORTION PILLS.”
If you can move quickly, you may be able to order some signs to be printed before March 26 using the resources below.
Abortion Pill Victim Banner
You can order a 6′ x 3′ Abortion Pill Victim banner for your protest. Click the image below to download the full-size PDF file for printing:
We recommend using BannersOnTheCheap.com or ESigns.com, both of which offer fast turn-around times and shipping.
You can also have the signs below printed at a local printer. They can be printed on paper and attached to a substrate like coroplast, or printed directly on a substrate like foamcore. Click the images below to download the printable files:
CVS Signs
Walgreens Signs
Literature for Your Protest
The organizing team has prepared two quarter-sheet handouts, one for Walgreens and one for CVS to hand to customers or passersby to explain why you’re protesting. Download the PDFs below:
Earning Media Coverage of Your Protest
Given that the Supreme Court hearing is on the same day as our protest effort, media will be looking for a local angle to the story, and your protest will give them just that! If you alert the media in advance, you have a very good chance of attracting a reporter to come to your protest.
Media list and press release
Your first step will be to build a list of local media outlets in your area, along with contact information for each outlet and their contact information. For instructions on this, see “Engage the Media and Earn Coverage for your Event” on the Pro-Life Action League website.
The national organizing team has prepared a press release template for you to use which you can download below:
Special notes for preparing your release:
- Fill in your info: Be careful to fill in all the bracketed content in the release that is related to your event, and delete any bracketed material that is not relevant.
- Proofread: Carefully check your press release for errors and accuracy before sending it out.
When to send your press releases?
- Send your press release first thing on Monday, March 25
If possible, call your media outlets after you send your release to increase your chances of getting coverage.