For abortion activists, it’s not enough that Walgreens recently promised to begin selling abortion drugs.
Because the pharmacy chain said it will not violate state laws that protect unborn babies, California Gov. Gavin Newsom and other abortion activists are vowing to boycott the company.
On Monday, the Democrat governor said California will not work with “any company that cowers to the extremists,” meaning pro-life advocates who have been protesting Walgreens, CVS and other pharmacies that plan to sell abortion drugs.
“California won’t be doing business with @walgreens — or any company that cowers to the extremists and puts women’s lives at risk,” Newsom wrote on Twitter. “We’re done.”
Newsom is the real extremist, though. Until this year, American pharmacies did not sell the abortion drugs at all; now, he is pressuring them to do so even in states where it is illegal and risk liability. And he is pressuring them to sell dangerous drugs that kill unborn babies and sometimes their mothers, too.
In January, Walgreens, CVS and, later, RiteAid announced plans to begin selling abortion drugs that are used to kill unborn babies up to about 10 weeks of pregnancy.
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Their decisions came after the Biden administration dropped safety regulations for the dangerous abortion drug mifepristone, which has been linked to the deaths of millions of babies and dozens of women. Previously, mifepristone only could be dispensed by FDA-approved abortion facilities, medical offices and hospitals under the direct supervision of a licensed physician.
In response, pro-life advocates launched boycotts and 20 Republican state attorneys general sent letters to the pharmacies warning them not to sell abortion drugs in their states. The state leaders said the Biden administration’s changes are dangerous and illegal, and the attorneys general will take legal action if pharmacies violate state or federal laws.
Last week, Walgreens responded to the letter, confirming that it does not plan to sell abortion drugs in those 20 states.
The news angered abortion activists, including Newsom who has been working aggressively with the billion-dollar abortion industry to expand the killing of unborn babies.
[Responding to Walgreens’ decision,] the Democratic governor directed the California Department of Health and Human Services to review all relationships Walgreens has with the state, including MediCal and Covered California, the state’s two largest public insurance plans, according to Newsom’s spokesperson. The amount of business California’s state-funded insurance plans does with Walgreens isn’t available, he said.
Newsom’s action likely also is an attempt to intimidate other pharmacy chains into selling abortion drugs nation-wide. For example, CVS has not responded yet to the state attorneys general.
In the letter, the Republican attorneys general pointed the companies to a federal law that bans mailing abortion drugs.
They told the companies: “Although many people are unfamiliar with this statute because it has not been amended in a few decades, the text could not be clearer: ‘every article or thing designed, adapted, or intended for producing abortion … shall not be conveyed in the mails.’ And anyone who ‘knowingly takes any such thing from the mails for the purpose of circulating’ is guilty of a federal crime.”
The attorneys general accused the Biden administration of issuing a “bizarre” misinterpretation of the law in its effort to expand abortions, and expressed confidence that the courts will reject it.
“A future U.S. Attorney General will almost certainly reject the Biden administration’s results-oriented, strained reading. And consequences for accepting the Biden administration’s reading could come far sooner,” they told Walgreens and CVS.
They also expressed concerns about the well-being of women and children in their states, noting the risk of injury and death as well as coerced and forced abortions.
“Abortion pills impose far higher risks of complications compared to surgical abortions. In addition, abortion pills, especially when distributed by mail, make coerced abortions much easier,” they said.
The drug mifepristone, typically used with a second drug, misoprostol, now is used for more than half of all abortions in the U.S. every year, or nearly half a million unborn babies, according to the Guttmacher Institute.
The FDA has linked mifepristone to at least 28 women’s deaths and 4,000 serious complications between 2000 and 2018. However, under President Barack Obama, the FDA stopped requiring that non-fatal complications from mifepristone be reported. So the numbers almost certainly are much higher.
Right now, a federal judge is considering a lawsuit from four medical groups that challenges the FDA approval of mifepristone as an abortion drug. The medical organizations accused the agency of ignoring evidence of safety problems and failing to properly study the risks.
Studies indicate the risks are more common than what abortion activists often claim, with as many as one in 17 women requiring hospital treatment.
