Walgreens introduced final week that it’d cease promoting mifepristone, a preferred abortion tablet, in purple states. California Gov. Gavin Newsom says his state will minimize ties with the pharmacy big after the transfer.
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Michael M. Santiago/Getty Photographs
Walgreens introduced final week that it’d cease promoting mifepristone, a preferred abortion tablet, in purple states. California Gov. Gavin Newsom says his state will minimize ties with the pharmacy big after the transfer.
Michael M. Santiago/Getty Photographs
Final week, Walgreens stated it is not going to distribute abortion capsules in states the place Republican officers have threatened authorized motion. Now a blue state says it’s going to minimize 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 executed,” he added.
A spokesperson for Gov. Newsom informed NPR that “all relationships between Walgreens and the state” have been beneath overview, 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 basic despatched letters threatening authorized motion.
An FDA resolution in January allowed for retail pharmacies to begin 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 tough choices to make.
Walgreens informed NPR on Friday that it could nonetheless take steps to promote mifepristone in “jurisdictions the place it’s authorized and operationally possible.” However the drug — which can also be used to ease miscarriages — remains 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 answer Newsom’s assertion. The corporate launched an announcement 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 monitor to turning into the world’s fourth largest financial system if it have 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 lined by CalPERS, its retirement insurance coverage program.
Even when the state solely minimize Walgreens out of state worker insurance coverage, the corporate would possibly see an enormous monetary impression: The state insures greater than 200,000 full-time workers.
Treatment abortion, versus surgical procedure, is the preferred means individuals 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.