Life&Death

Vermont AG joins group defending CVS, Walgreens for planning to dispense abortion pills

Boxes of the drug mifepristone sit on a shelf at the West Alabama Women’s Center in Tuscaloosa, Ala., on March 16, 2022. Attorney generals in 20 conservative-led states warned CVS and Walgreens on Wednesday, Feb. 1, 2023, that they could face legal consequences if they sell abortion pills by mail in those states. (AP Photo/Allen G. Breed, File, via Center Square)

by Tom Joyce for the Center Square

Oregon Attorney General Ellen Rosenblum is leading a coalition – including the Vermont Attorney General’s office – supporting CVS and Walgreens pharmacies’ plans to start offering mifepristone and misoprostol, also known as chemical abortions, in their stores. 

The companies announced their intentions last month after the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) tweaked its rules. The FDA will now allow retail pharmacies to dispense mifepristone to people who obtain a prescription for it. As a result, Walgreens and CBS are seeking FDA approval to dispense the drug.

Rosenblum spearheaded a letter sent to CVS and Walgreens signed by 23 attorneys general supporting their desire to make it easier for women to have abortions. 

“Mifepristone and misoprostol are safe, effective medications that are prescribed by doctors for many purposes, including abortion,” Oregon Attorney General Rosenblum said in a press release issued by her office.” Attorneys general in anti-abortion states are trying to scare retail pharmacy chains away from offering these critical medications. But, in a time when reproductive health care is under attack, our group of 23 attorneys general strongly believe we should be encouraging companies and providers to offer easily accessible, safe, and confidential healthcare as broadly as possible.”

As Rosenblum notes, pro-life attorneys general have taken the opposite approach. For example, Kansas Attorney General Kris Kobach sent Walgreens’ leadership a letter earlier this month warning Walgreens against providing abortion pills to Kansans via mail order, which is illegal federally.

“No self-respecting lawyer would read the law in such a way that is clearly inconsistent with its plain meaning,” Kobach’s letter reads. “President Biden is beholden to the country’s most extreme pro-abortion voices, who consistently advocate for expanding the abortion regime without any consideration of legality or even women’s safety. But nothing requires you to join him. The law says what it says. I encourage you to follow it.”

The 23 Democratic attorneys general said in their letter that they think CVS and Walgreens legally have a right to dispense mifepristone and misoprostol for abortion. 

“Mifepristone and misoprostol are safe, effective medications that are used lawfully for a variety of purposes that comport with federal and state law,” the attorneys general wrote in their letter. “They are FDA-approved for use in terminating a pregnancy through ten weeks gestation, which is a protected right under many states’ laws. In short, the antiquated legal theory the anti-abortion states attempt to revive is meritless and has been repeatedly and consistently rejected.”

States that had an attorney general sign the letter include: Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, the District of Columbia, Hawaii, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Washington.

Categories: Life&Death

5 replies »

  1. Having easier access to these drugs gives the illusion that Mifepristone and misoprostol are as safe as an occasional script for antibiotics.

  2. Can’t get a prescription for Ivermectin or Hydroxychlorquine which actually saves lives. Our AG would rather defend a drug that terminates life. Our new tourism market: Vermont, a great place to be elminated and composted.

  3. One would think that given the lack of workers,with jobs going begging, and that Vermont must pay people, to move to VT, that the elected officals would perfer that women would would bring a child to term, rather then promote the murder of the unborn child, with taxpayer dollars,and those unborn childred would be able to fill the gap, that these assnine policies promotes.

    It make no sense to me whatsoever.

    None!

  4. Maybe if we point out the effect on Vermont’s MUNICIPAL WATER SYSTEM from dead babies being flushed down the toilet along with the poisonous chemicals, we might generate interest in this topic. Focus on the unborn alone has not worked.

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