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 minimize ties with the pharmacy large after the transfer.
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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 minimize ties with the pharmacy large after the transfer.
Michael M. Santiago/Getty Photographs
Final week, Walgreens mentioned it won’t distribute abortion tablets in states the place Republican officers have threatened authorized motion. Now a blue state says it should minimize ties with the pharmacy large 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 determination.
“We’re finished,” he added.
A spokesperson for Gov. Newsom advised NPR that “all relationships between Walgreens and the state” have been below assessment, however declined to share specifics, together with a timeline. Walgreens shares fell 1.77% on Monday following Newsom’s announcement.
Walgreens has been below fireplace since confirming final week that it would not dispense the favored abortion tablet mifepristone in sure states after 20 Republican state attorneys common despatched letters threatening authorized motion.
An FDA determination 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 tablets. That is left Walgreen’s, alongside different nationwide pharmacy giants like RiteAid and CVS, with troublesome choices to make.
Walgreens advised NPR on Friday that it will 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 — remains to be authorized in a number 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 an announcement on Monday saying that it was ready on FDA certification to dispense mifepristone “according to federal and state legal guidelines.”
California, which might be on monitor to changing into the world’s fourth largest economic 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 policy, the corporate would possibly see an enormous monetary affect: The state insures greater than 200,000 full-time workers.
Remedy abortion, versus surgical procedure, is the preferred method 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.
