California Governor Gavin Newsom has tweeted that the state will no longer do business with Walgreens, citing the pharmacy chain’s refusal to distribute the abortion pill Mifepristone in 20 states where its use has been outlawed.
The Supreme Court’s 2022 Dobbs decision repealing Roe v. Wade has made it more difficult for women seeking abortions in many states and shifted the battleground to the distribution and availability of these medications, putting many pharmacy chains in the middle of contentious political/medical conflicts. Even before the Dobbs decision, in 2020, medication abortions accounted for 53% of all facility-based abortions in the U.S., according to the Guttmacher Institute, which tracks data about reproductive health policies.
Newsom’s March 6 tweet read: “California won’t be doing business with @walgreens — or any company that cowers to the extremists and puts women’s lives at risk. We’re done.”
Walgreens issued a statement that read: “We want to be very clear about what our position has always been: Walgreens plans to dispense Mifepristone in any jurisdiction where it is legally permissible to do so. Once we are certified by the FDA, we will dispense this medication consistent with federal and state laws. Providing legally approved medications to patients is what pharmacies do, and is rooted in our commitment to the communities in which we operate.”
Advertisement
However, Walgreens’ stance has earned praise from anti-abortion politicians, including former Vice President Mike Pence, according to Politico: at the Students for Life’s annual gala in Naples, Fla., Pence told guests that “their pressure campaign against ‘pill mills and mail-order abortions’ is working and urging them to ‘stay in the fight.’”
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved Mifepristone in 2000 for terminating pregnancies through seven weeks of gestation, which was extended to 10 weeks in 2016. In January 2023, the FDA allowed retail pharmacies to sell the pill under a risk evaluation and mitigation strategy (REMS) that permits distribution of the drug only by a “certified prescriber, or by a certified pharmacy on a prescription issued by a certified prescriber.”
