California Governor Gavin Newsom has tweeted that the state will no longer do business with Walgreens, citing the pharmacy chain’s refusal to distribute the abortion pill Mifepristone in 20 states where its use has been outlawed.
The Supreme Court’s 2022 Dobbs decision repealing Roe v. Wade has made it more difficult for women seeking abortions in many states and shifted the battleground to the distribution and availability of these medications, putting many pharmacy chains in the middle of contentious political/medical conflicts. Even before the Dobbs decision, in 2020, medication abortions accounted for 53% of all facility-based abortions in the U.S., according to the Guttmacher Institute, which tracks data about reproductive health policies.
