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In this photo, packets of mifepristone pills are displayed at a family planning clinic on April 13, 2023 in Rockville, Maryland.
Anna Moneymaker | Getty Images
Democratic lawmakers called on Thursday walmart, Costco, KrogerSafeway and Health Mart to publicly commit to selling prescription abortion pills mifepristone in their retail pharmacies.
Pending lawsuits threaten mifepristone approval in the US. It is currently the most common method of termination of pregnancy in the country.
The five companies have been tight-lipped for months about whether they will be certified to sell mifepristone under a Food and Drug Administration a program that monitors how patients dispense and use medications.
“It is unconscionable that five of the nation’s largest retail pharmacies refuse to declare whether they will be certified to provide basic, legal, FDA-approved medical abortion healthcare to Americans,” said Rep. Dan Goldman, D-NY. in a statement on Thursday.
Goldman and Rep. Judy Chu, D-Calif., sent a letter asked company directors to confirm by June 23 whether their pharmacies will be certified to sell abortion pills.
More than 50 other Democratic lawmakers signed the letter.
“Your continued silence is unacceptable as it is inconsistent with your publicly stated values in support of equal access to health care and gender equality,” the lawmakers said in a letter to the CEOs.
Democratic governors and senators asked the companies in March whether their pharmacies would be certified to dispense drugs. The companies have still not taken a public position on the issue.
America’s largest retail pharmacies have increasingly found themselves in the middle of a national battle over abortion access that was sparked by the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade last June. More than a dozen states have banned abortion since the Supreme Court overturned a landmark 1973 decision that protected access to the procedure as right under the US Constitution.
As conservative states outlawed abortion after Roe fell, the FDA in January tried to expand access to mifepristone by allowing retail pharmacies for the first time to dispense the drug if they get certified.
The agency also permanently allowed women to get the pill through the mail.
CVS and Walgreenstwo of the largest pharmacy chains in the United States announced shortly after the FDA’s decision that they would obtain a certificate to sell mifepristone where dispensing of the drug is legal.
The two companies soon faced a backlash from Republican state attorneys general, who fear that easier access to mifepristone, especially by mail order, will undermine their states’ restrictive abortion laws or outright bans.
A GOP attorney general has warned the CEOs of CVS and Walgreens that they will take legal action if the companies sell the pills in their states. Walgreens confirmed to the attorney general that the company will not sell mifepristone in their states.
Walgreens was then hit California Governor Gavin Newsom. The Liberal governor refused to renew the state’s contract with Walgreens because of his move.
Mifepristone’s status as an FDA-approved drug faces a very uncertain future, even in states where abortion is still legal.
An anti-abortion group of doctors sued the FDA last November to pull mifepristone off the U.S. market entirely.
U.S. District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk of the Northern District of Texas ruled in April in favor of the anti-abortion doctors and temporarily revoked the FDA’s approval. The Supreme Court intervened in the matter and access maintained on mifepristone as the litigation unfolds.
A three-judge panel of the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals now has the case and could issue a ruling at any time. The Court of Appeal the justices were skeptical of the Justice Department’s defense of mifepristone during oral arguments in May.
The case is likely to go before the Supreme Court again, especially if the appeals court rules against mifepristone.
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