CVS, Walgreens to begin selling abortion pill this month
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[March 02, 2024]
By Doina Chiacu
(Reuters) -CVS and Walgreens, the two largest U.S. pharmacy chains, will
start selling abortion pill mifepristone at stores in several states
this month, drawing praise from President Joe Biden who has made access
to abortion a key election campaign issue.
The announcement Friday comes as a legal challenge to the pill, brought
in Texas by anti-abortion groups and doctors, was due to be heard by the
U.S. Supreme Court this month. The court ended its recognition of a
constitutional right to abortion in 2022 when it overturned the 1973 Roe
v. Wade precedent.
Biden, calling the decision a milestone, encouraged interested
pharmacies to seek certification to dispense the drugs.
In a statement, Biden said the stakes could not be higher for women
across America, and cited "relentless attacks on reproductive freedom by
Republican elected officials."
The Biden campaign has put abortion rights front and center in the Nov.
5 election in which he will likely face Donald Trump, and argues
abortion access is a personal freedom that the former president and his
fellow Republicans are denying women.
Republicans have issued restrictive abortion laws in nearly two dozen
states since the Supreme Court reversal of abortion rights, arguing that
abortion ends the life of a human being and that stricter limits are
needed at the state and national level.
It is a galvanizing issue that Democrats hope will boost enthusiasm
among their base, attract independent voters and increase turnout in
November's election.
![](http://archives.lincolndailynews.com/2023/Nov/22/images/ads/current/merealty_sda_BASKETBALL_2023.png)
The companies said last year they planned to offer the pill following
the U.S. Food and Drug Administration's (FDA) decision to allow retail
pharmacies to sell mifepristone in the country for the first time.
Walgreens said on Friday it expected to begin dispensing the pills
within a week, in select locations in New York, Pennsylvania,
Massachusetts, California, and Illinois.
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![](../images/030224PIX/health83.jpg)
Boxes of Mifepristone, the first pill in a medical abortion, are
seen at Alamo Women's Clinic in Carbondale, Illinois, U.S., April
20, 2023. REUTERS/Evelyn Hockstein/ File photo
![](http://archives.lincolndailynews.com/2024/Mar/02/images/ads/current/graue_lda_4069chevysilverado_021924.jpg) CVS will begin filling prescriptions
for the medication in Massachusetts and Rhode Island in the weeks
ahead and expand to additional states, where allowed by law, on a
rolling basis.
Mifepristone, approved by the FDA in 2000, is one of two drugs used
in medication abortion, which accounts for more than half of U.S.
abortions.
The recently formed Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine and other
groups sued the FDA in 2022, saying it had not adequately considered
the risks of the drug when it first approved it, or when it later
eased restrictions on its distribution.
The Supreme Court's eventual ruling in the case is expected by the
end of June - in the middle of the presidential race.
The Biden administration appealed an August decision by the New
Orleans-based 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that would curb how
mifepristone is delivered and distributed, barring telemedicine
prescriptions of the drug and shipments by mail.
If the Supreme Court were to uphold the lower court's decision
rolling back FDA rules on how the drug is distributed, the
pharmacies would have to reverse their policy, according to Katie
Kraschel, a Northeastern University law professor specializing in
health policy.
"They would have to stop dispensing it and revert back to FDA’s
previous regulations that only allowed patients to receive
mifepristone from the clinic where it was prescribed," Kraschel said
in an email.
(Reporting by Doina Chiacu and Rami Ayyub in Washington and Sriparna
Roy in Bengaluru; editing by Paul Grant, Shinjini Ganguli, Deepa
Babington and Chizu Nomiyama)
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