CVS and Walgreens said Friday that they will begin selling mifepristone, a key abortion medication, a move that could expand abortion access at a moment when many states have moved to restrict it.
The phased rollout by the pharmacy retail giants will start as early as next week, with Walgreens poised to go first. The pills will only be available with a prescription. Mifepristone is the first of two medications used in medication abortion. The second, Misoprostol, is taken immediately after or up to 48 hours later.
Marty Maloney, a spokesperson for Walgreens, said the pharmacy retail giant has completed the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval process to dispense mifepristone. Maloney said Walgreens will begin dispensing mifepristone at select locations including in New York, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, California, and Illinois. Walgreens said it would not send mifepristone by mail.
CVS said in a statement that the pharmacy has also received approval to dispense mifepristone and plans to start filling prescriptions in states where it is legal to do so. CVS did not specify when the pills would first become available in stores.
“We’re working with manufacturers and suppliers to secure the medication and are not yet dispensing it in any of our pharmacies,” said Amy Thibault, a CVS spokesperson. “We’ll begin filling prescriptions for the medication in Massachusetts and Rhode Island in the weeks ahead and will expand to additional states, where allowed by law, on a rolling basis.”
Because the companies will only fill mifepristone prescriptions in states where abortion is legal under state law, their moves will not change where in the U.S. the pills are available. But it will make abortion access that much easier in states where it is already legal.
It remains to be seen if CVS and Walgreens will attract the ire of anti-abortion lawmakers in Washington.
Both CVS stock and Walgreens stock were largely level in Friday afternoon trading.
Walgreens was booted off the Dow Jones Industrial Average last week and replaced with Amazon.