SACRAMENTO, Calif. (TND) — California Gov. Gavin Newsom strongly denounced one of the U.S.’s largest pharmacy chains on Monday after it said it would stop distributing abortion pills in some areas.
California won’t be doing business with @walgreens — or any company that cowers to the extremists and puts women’s lives at risk,” Newsom said in a tweet. “We’re done.”
Walgreens will no longer be distributing mifepristone by mail in 20 U.S. states, the company announced on Friday.
The decision came after GOP lawmakers in those 20 states threatened legal action against the company over its abortion medication sales.
In 2000, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved mifepristone to be used in combination with another drug, misoprostol, to end pregnancies 10 weeks along or shorter. In 2021, the FDA eliminated the need for an in-person requirement to get the pills, which allowed pharmacies to ship the product by mail order.
Over half of U.S. abortions are now done with pills instead of with a procedure, according to the Guttmacher Institute.
Walgreens is currently not dispensing the pills anywhere, according to the Associated Press. The company is reportedly working to become eligible through the FDA’s certification process, and plans to dispense the abortion pills where it is legal to do so.
National Community Pharmacists Association spokesperson Andrea Pivarunas told the AP that some independent pharmacists seek to become certified themselves so they can distribute the pills, but added it would be a “personal business decision,” and they’d have to follow state laws. An exact number of those independent pharmacists seeking certification was not given.
Legal experts claim they foresee years of court battles over the pills and access to them, the AP reports.
Listen to the report by KMJ’s Liz Kern.
