State of California joins #BoycottWalgreens pro-abortion activists

AP Photo/ Aaron Kehoe

Governor Gavin Newsom announced that California is done with Walgreens on Tuesday. What’s the beef with America’s second-largest pharmacy store chain? Walgreens has decided not to sell abortion pills in its stores in red states.

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Walgreens made its decision public last week. It will not sell mifepristone in 20 states after conservative attorneys general threatened legal action. Newsom tweeted that the decision was one made by a company that “cowers to the extremists.” So, California will no longer do any business with Walgreens.

In a statement to ABC News, a spokesperson for Newsom said the state was “reviewing” its relationship with Walgreens.

“We will not pursue business with companies that cave to right wing bullies pushing their extremist agenda or companies that put politics above the health of women and girls,” the statement read.

Contrary to the lies told by pro-abortion leftists, the Supreme Court did not ban abortion with the Dobbs decision. It sent abortion back to the states, as it was before the Supreme Court’s unconstitutional ruling in Roe v Wade fifty years ago. Some states are more restrictive since the ruling than others. Some attorneys general have banded together to disrupt the sale and mailing of abortion pills. Some red states, though, do allow abortion medicine to be sold.

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Last month, the group of attorneys general sent a letter to CVS and Walgreens saying that if they sold mifepristone, they would be in violation of the Comstock Act, an 1873 law that makes it illegal to send contraceptives, substances that induce abortion, pornographic content, sex toys and any written material about these items.

Several of the states that signed the letter — including Alaska, Iowa, Kansas, and Montana — currently allow abortion access, including abortion medication, according to the Guttmacher Institute, a research group focusing on sexual and reproductive health.

Walgreens said it sent a letter to each of the attorneys general to confirm it will not sell mifepristone in their states.

“From the outset, we have made our intentions clear to become a certified pharmacy to distribute mifepristone wherever legally possible,” a spokesperson said about the Newsom decision.

The spokesperson said Walgreen still intends to become certified under an FDA program to dispense the drug elsewhere but has not done so yet.

More than half of abortions in the United States are medical abortions using mifepristone. The Food and Drug administration approved mifepristone in 2000.

Pro-life conservatives applaud the decision.

Former Vice President Mike Pence lavished praise on the company at Students for Life’s annual gala in Naples, Fla., telling guests that their pressure campaign against “pill mills and mail-order abortions” is working and urging them to “stay in the fight.”

“I commend Walgreens for yielding to the rule of law,” he said. “Americans don’t want their pharmacies to become abortion facilities.”

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Walgreens finds itself alone and taking heat from all sides of the abortion debate. None of the other pharmacies are saying whether or where they will sell abortion pills. Conservatives think Walgreens should stop selling mifepristone in all its locations, not just in red states. The left is angry,

“This is all a part of a continued effort by anti-abortion extremists who want to use this arcane law to impose a backdoor ban on abortion,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters at the White House daily briefing, adding that the drug in question, mifepristone, “has been on the market for more than two decades, and is regularly used for both miscarriage management and abortion and is used in more than 60 countries.”

Jean-Pierre said that President Joe Biden will “continue to support access to this critical medication within the limits of the law,” but declined to specify what steps the administration would take or whether it has spoken to Walgreens or other pharmacy chains about abortion pill access.

Walgreens is headquartered in Illinois. So, the Democrat governor and attorney general called an emergency with the company. It turned out that they were swayed by Walgreens to see their side of the story. It’s a business decision.

Attorney General Kwame Raoul said he was ready to “hammer away at Walgreens” but came away more sympathetic to the bind the home-state company is in.

“They’re in a landscape where they don’t know who the next administration may be,” he explained, saying this uncertainty pushed the company to make a “strategic choice” to only dispense the pills in some states and not to use mail delivery of them anywhere.

“It’s hard to argue against that. They’re acting in their business-first interest,” Raoul said. “If, God forbid, one of these extreme candidates were elected president, they could be subject to not only civil but criminal action.”

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Students for Life and other pro-life groups picketed outside more than 50 pharmacies around the country. They encouraged others to vote with their feet and wallets. Pro-abortion people on social media began a #BoycottWalgreens hashtag campaign. Walgreens is caught in the middle with both sides angry for different reasons.

Constitutional republics can get messy. Abortion is a highly divisive topic. Abortion wars will continue for years to come. Abortion is legal in California and so is the sale of abortion pills. This was just Newsom’s way of garnering a headline as he was away on some personal time instead of being in the state while some parts were experiencing major weather events with snow and ice. Governor Ron DeSantis (R-FL) came into the state and made Newsom look bad. It’s pretty easy to point out how bad of a governor Newsom is, though, and DeSantis relishes in talking about how many people moved out of California and into Florida. As he should.

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