Bowyer Research | On July 9, 2014

Abortifacient Manufacturers, in Light of Hobby Lobby Case

On Monday, June 30th, the Supreme Court overruled an Obamacare mandate that forced family-owned corporations, such as Hobby Lobby, to pay for “emergency contraceptives” and birth control for their employees.

This paper includes a brief list and description of some of the largest health-care corporations that, either directly or indirectly, produce abortifacients (“emergency contraceptives”). Included are charts from the Financial Times for each corporation that shows their market performance vs. the Dow Jones Industrial Average from
June 26th – July 2nd, 2014.|

Pfizer – Gross Annual Income: 37.6bn

Pfizer is a trans-national healthcare corporation based in the United States. It deals almost entirely in pharmaceuticals, support of health care providers, and medical research. However, it does produce the emergency contraceptive Lybrel.

5 day performance vs. Dow Jones Industrial Average

Bayer – Gross Annual Income: 20.8bn

Bayer AG is a German-based corporation that operates in most major countries. It works primarily in healthcare, but also has a substantial agricultural sector that experiments with pesticides. It produces two emergency contraceptives: Levonelle and Postinor.

5 day performance vs. Dow Jones Industrial Average

Teva – Gross Annual Income: 38.6bn

Teva Pharmaceuticals is an international health care corporation based in Israel. It is one of the largest pharmaceutical companies in the world, and deals primarily in over-the-counter treatments. Among other things, it produces the generic emergency contraceptive “Plan B One-Step,” which is available prescription-free, over-the-counter, to people under the age of 18.

5 day performance vs. Dow Jones Industrial Average

Actavis – Gross Annual Income: 3bn

Actavis PLC, formerly Watson Pharmaceuticals, is an international corporation based in Ireland. It produces mainly generic prescription drugs and is the third largest generic-pharmaceutical corporation. It produces ella(R), another over-the-counter emergency contraceptive. Forest Laboratories, a corporation that will soon be acquired by Actavis, produces a chemical used to induce abortions.

5 day performance vs. Dow Jones Industrial Average

AstraZeneca – Gross Annual Income: 12.3bn

AstraZeneca PLC is a British-based transnational healthcare corporation. It works primarily in the research and development, rather than production, of prescription drugs. One of AstraZeneca’s subsidiaries, based in India, produces three drugs regularly used in abortion operations.

5 day performance vs. Dow Jones Industrial Average

In each case, the corporation in question suffered a small drop in value on the day of the Supreme Court ruling, and quickly bounced back the following day. This suggests that either the ruling will have no major impact on the abortifacient sector, that abortifacients represent a relatively small portion of the overall revenue of these corporations, or both.

Bowyer Research