The governor of Massachusetts reminded pharmacies Wednesday that they’re required to inventory a key abortion tablet, regardless of a nationwide effort by anti-abortion activists to ban the treatment.
The motion comes as a federal decide in Texas is contemplating a lawsuit that will overturn decades-old federal approval of the drug.
Democratic Gov. Maura Healey issued a written assertion citing steerage from the state board overseeing pharmacies that claims they have to keep “a continuous, sufficient supply of all family planning medications, including mifepristone, misoprostol, emergency contraception, and contraceptive prescriptions.”
Misoprostol can also be used as an abortion drug.
Healey mentioned Massachusetts will at all times defend abortion entry.
“At a time when states are rushing to ban medication abortion and some pharmacies are irresponsibly restricting access to it, we are reminding Massachusetts pharmacies that they have an obligation to provide critical reproductive health medications,” Healey mentioned within the assertion.
Medical abortion is the nation’s most typical methodology for ending pregnancies. Massachusetts in 2020 handed a legislation increasing entry to abortion within the state.
If U.S. District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk guidelines in opposition to the Food and Drug Administration within the Texas circumstances, it’s unclear how rapidly entry to mifepristone might be curtailed. Revoking or suspending approval of a drug after greater than 20 years would even be an unprecedented problem to the company.
More than a dozen states banned abortion after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade final yr.
Healey mentioned yielding to what she described as “coercive tactics” will additional “strip pregnant people of their agency and rights and will violate the responsibility of pharmacies and pharmacy departments to provide critical healthcare services.”
Source: www.bostonherald.com”