“There are definitely states where they could be providing mifepristone, and now they won’t be.” “They needed to take more time to think through,” Nash says. With future fights over access to birth control and gender-affirming care looming in the near future, she adds, the decision creates a troubling precedent. Both states, she also notes, have higher courts that have consistently protected abortion access. “Alaska, Montana - they’re both rural states where pharmacy access is could be very important,” Nash says. Ohio Voters Reject GOP Effort to Foil Abortion Amendment A representative for Walgreens, reached for comment, pointed to language in statutes in Alaska and Montana that say an abortion can only be provided by a licensed physician, but Nash points out that that doesn’t create a meaningful obstacle, since a physician would be the one writing a prescription for the drug in any case. And then there are some states, she says, that have none of the above, where Walgreens is also saying it will not dispense mifepristone.Īlaska, Nash says, is one example: It has no ban on telemedicine, no requirement that the abortion pill be dispensed in-person, no waiting period and no gestational limit.

Some have banned abortion completely, some have laws that require a doctor to dispense the drug in person, some have onerous requirements that would simply make it impractical for a pharmacy to distribute it. The 21 states where Walgreens has said it will not dispense mifepristone fall into a few different categories, she explains. If those companies are still evaluating how they will respond to threats from Republican attorneys general, Guttmacher Institute’s Elizabeth Nash, the foremost expert on state abortion laws, says they are likely to find they have more leeway than Walgreens claims it has. “Health Mart independent community pharmacy operators make their own independent business decisions.”) (The country’s third largest drugstore group, Health Mart, a franchise program, told Rolling Stone that each owner-operator would choose whether to dispense mifepristone on their own. CVS did not respond to multiple requests for comment from Rolling Stone, nor did Walmart or Costco. The largest, CVS, has remained quiet as outrage has continued to build. Walgreens is the second-largest pharmacy chain in the country. Kathy Hochul of New York dispatched a warning letter of her own. Pritzker’s office to discuss their plans, and on Thursday, Gov.

A few days earlier, the CEO of Walgreens, which is headquartered in Illinois, was summoned to Gov. Walgreens had received about $54 million dollars under the contract to date, for providing prescription drugs for California’s prisons.Īs calls to boycott the pharmacy chain have grown, Newsom isn’t the first or last Democratic heavyweight to express disappointment with the company over its capitulation to the GOP AGs.

“California will not stand by as corporations cave to extremists and cut off critical access to reproductive care and freedom,” the California governor said in a statement. Gavin Newsom this week made what could either be considered a bold pledge or a shameless grandstand: He announced that the state was reevaluating the planned renewal of a contract with Walgreens, after the pharmacy chain assured 21 Republican attorneys general that it would not dispense mifepristone in their states, including some states where abortion remains legal.

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