California
California will cut ties with Walgreens over the company’s plan to drop abortion pills
Walgreens introduced final week that it’d cease promoting mifepristone, a well-liked abortion tablet, in pink states. California Gov. Gavin Newsom says his state will reduce ties with the pharmacy big after the transfer.
Michael M. Santiago/Getty Photographs
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Michael M. Santiago/Getty Photographs
Walgreens introduced final week that it’d cease promoting mifepristone, a well-liked abortion tablet, in pink states. California Gov. Gavin Newsom says his state will reduce ties with the pharmacy big after the transfer.
Michael M. Santiago/Getty Photographs
Final week, Walgreens stated it won’t distribute abortion capsules in states the place Republican officers have threatened authorized motion. Now a blue state says it should reduce ties with the pharmacy big due to the transfer.
“California will not be doing enterprise with @walgreens – or any firm that cowers to the extremists and places ladies’s lives in danger,” Gov. Gavin Newsom wrote in a tweet yesterday with a hyperlink to information protection of Walgreen’s resolution.
“We’re achieved,” he added.
A spokesperson for Gov. Newsom advised NPR that “all relationships between Walgreens and the state” had been beneath assessment, however declined to share specifics, together with a timeline. Walgreens shares fell 1.77% on Monday following Newsom’s announcement.
Walgreens has been beneath hearth since confirming final week that it would not dispense the favored abortion tablet mifepristone in sure states after 20 Republican state attorneys normal despatched letters threatening authorized motion.
An FDA resolution in January allowed for retail pharmacies to start out promoting mifepristone so long as they full a certification course of. Final month, 20 Republican state attorneys generals despatched a letter threatening authorized motion in opposition to corporations that started carrying the capsules. That is left Walgreen’s, alongside different nationwide pharmacy giants like RiteAid and CVS, with troublesome selections to make.
Walgreens advised NPR on Friday that it might nonetheless take steps to promote mifepristone in “jurisdictions the place it’s authorized and operationally possible.” However the drug — which can be used to ease miscarriages — continues to be authorized in a few of the states threatening Walgreens, together with Alaska, Iowa, Kansas and Montana.
Walgreens has not responded to NPR’s newest try to make clear its place or to reply to Newsom’s assertion. The corporate launched a press release on Monday saying that it was ready on FDA certification to dispense mifepristone “in keeping with federal and state legal guidelines.”
California, which might be on observe to turning into the world’s fourth largest financial system if it had been its personal nation, has immense shopping for energy within the healthcare market.
Greater than 13 million Californians depend on the state’s Medicaid program. One other 1.5 million, together with dependents as much as the age of 26, are coated by CalPERS, its retirement insurance coverage program.
Even when the state solely reduce Walgreens out of state worker insurance coverage, the corporate may see a giant monetary affect: The state insures greater than 200,000 full-time staff.
Medicine abortion, versus surgical procedure, is the most well-liked method folks terminate pregnancies, accounting for greater than half of all abortions within the U.S.
Along with Republicans’ authorized threats in opposition to wider distribution of mifepristone, an ongoing federal case in Texas is difficult the FDA’s approval of the drug, aiming to take away it from the market altogether.
NPR’s Sarah McCammon and Kaitlyn Radde contributed reporting.