"Soft-on-crime' right-wing AG goes after women's medicine and doctors instead of violent crime.
Late last night, a group of lawmakers led by Sen. Elizabeth Warren slammed Walgreens for ending plans to dispense Mifepristone, medication that loosens uterine lining to expel a (very) early pregnancy.
“It’s outrageous for MAGA extremists to intimidate pharmacies into refusing to dispense a medication that FDA deemed safe & effective over two decades ago — and @Walgreens should not pander to them,” Warren wrote. “Pharmacy chains like CVS, Rite Aid, and others must not make the same mistake.”
This is after a February letter signed by 21 state attorneys general to Walgreen’s CEO sternly reminding them that federal and many state laws prohibit mailing abortion pills. At risk is the company’s license as well as potential criminal charges against individual pharmacists.
A couple of things about coverage of this: 1) All publications call it an abortion pill, which is fine, but with zero context about the fact that it’s only administered in the earliest stages of pregnancy, when a majority of Americans agree abortion should be legal. 2) It’s not just an abortion pill. It’s the first line of treatment in a silent miscarriage. That’s when the fetus has stopped developing, but doesn’t bleed out like a usual miscarriage, and you go to the OB-GYN to hear the heartbeat for the first time, and they get very worried and then silent and sad. The only way to expel the tissue without a physical procedure is with Mifepristone. Otherwise, it might become infected and kill you. 3) The coverage is all about Walgreens’ reaction and the counteraction by Democrats like Elizabeth Warren and Gavin Newson, who’s threatened to cut state ties to the company.
“California won’t be doing business with @walgreens — or any company that cowers to the extremists and puts women’s lives at risk,” Newsom said in a tweet.
That’s also fine, but to learn who the 21 asshole AGs are, you have to hunt down the original letter. Almost no stories name them. It’s the invisibility cloak of the right-wing prosecutor: while reform DAs are under constant, microscopic scrutiny, these right-wingers with immense power over people’s lives conduct their business with no press coverage; it’s just assumed that they’re doing right by the status quo, even though the status quo is insane.
Missouri’s AG Andrew Bailey drafted the letter. So, how are things going in Missouri, otherwise?
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