CVS, Walgreens to Begin Selling Abortion Pills Later This Month

WASHINGTON — The nation’s two largest pharmacy chains will start dispensing the abortion pill mifepristone in select states later this month, just weeks before the Supreme Court is set to hear a case that could lead to its removal from the market.

The decision by both CVS and Walgreens to make mifepristone available with a prescription at their pharmacy counters was originally reported by The New York Times.

The story got a quick, positive response from the White House, where President Joe Biden called the decision “an important milestone” to ensuring women’s access to the pill, which was approved by the Food and Drug Administration more than 20 years ago.

Officials at both chains said they had received certification to dispense mifepristone under guidelines the FDA issued last year. 

Both chains had indicated that they initially plan to make the medication available in just a handful of states, and then will gradually expand their sale in states where abortion is legal and where pharmacies are legally able to dispense abortion pills.

“With major retail pharmacy chains newly certified to dispense medication abortion, many women will soon have the option to pick up their prescription at a local, certified pharmacy — just as they would for any other medication,” Biden said.

He went on to encourage all pharmacies that want to join CVS and Walgreens in dispensing the pill to seek certification.

“The stakes could not be higher for women across America,” the president said.

Vice President Kamala Harris also acknowledged the decision by CVS and Walgreens at the conclusion of a campaign event in Durham, North Carolina.

“I want to acknowledge the decision today to allow two major pharmacies to make available mifepristone, which is medication abortion, in some states, and I would urge and challenge other pharmacies to do the same,” she said. 

“It was over a year ago that the Supreme Court took away a … right that had long been recognized by the American people, and since then, states throughout our country have further restricted the rights of women to make decisions about their own bodies, and to plan their own futures,” she said.

Later, without mentioning former President Donald Trump by name, Harris said, “Let’s remember that the architect of where we are now in the taking of these freedoms was the former president of the United States, who has boasted about the fact that he essentially handpicked three members of the nation’s highest court with the intention that they would undo the protections of Roe v. Wade.”

Walgreens will reportedly start providing the pill within the next week in a small number of its pharmacies in New York, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, California and Illinois.

Fraser Engerman, a spokesman for the chain, told the Times the phased rollout in select locations would “allow us to ensure quality, safety and privacy for our patients, providers and team members.”

CVS will begin dispensing in all of its pharmacies in Massachusetts and Rhode Island at an unspecified date before the end of the month.

Both chains said they are continuing to monitor the fluid legal situation surrounding mifepristone in many states and indicated they would refrain from dispensing the drug in states where the law is unclear due to pending legal challenges.

On March 26, the Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in FDA v. Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine and Danco v. Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine, cases in which a group of doctors claim the FDA used a flawed process to initially approve the drug and, later, keep it on the market.

The conservative 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeal has ruled that the agency’s actions likely violated the law, and that its approval of mifepristone should be amended to block mail-order distribution of the drug and to require women to visit a doctor before it can be prescribed for them.

Abortion opponents roundly panned the pharmacies’ decision.

Katie Daniel, state policy director of Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, an anti-abortion group, said in a statement that CVS and Walgreens’ decision to sell “dangerous abortion drugs” was “shameful” and predicted that the harm to unborn babies and their mothers would be “incalculable.”

“This reckless policy was made possible by the Biden administration, which is pushing to turn every pharmacy and post office in America into an abortion center for the sake of abortion industry greed,” Daniel said. 

“Even when used under the strongest safeguards, abortion drugs send roughly one in 25 women to the emergency room, according to the FDA’s own label. Yet under Democrat presidents, the FDA has illegally rolled back basic safety standards, like in-person doctor visits, even allowing these deadly drugs to be sent through the mail,” she said.

Dr. Ingrid Skop, vice president and director of medical affairs at Charlotte Lozier Institute, another anti-abortion group, also criticized the decision.

“By pushing these medically unsupervised abortions, the FDA and abortion advocates continue down the slippery slope of chipping away at medical standards for women seeking abortion,” she said. “This is not health care. This is an ideology that prioritizes destruction of unborn human life and does not care that the women injured by these abortions … are collateral damage.”

Medication abortion is a two-drug regimen that is now the most common method of ending pregnancies in the United States.

Mifepristone, which blocks a hormone necessary for pregnancy development, is taken first, followed 24 to 48 hours later by misoprostol, which causes contractions that empty the uterus.

Dan can be reached at [email protected] and @DanMcCue