A sternly worded letter from the National Women’s Law Center demands that CVS Health take immediate steps to ensure access to reproductive drugs after a CVS pharmacist allegedly told a local woman “I’m not comfortable dispensing it to you” when the woman tried to fill a prescription for misoprostol.
The drug is one of two used to end early-term pregnancies, but in this case, the women’s rights activist group based in Washington alleges that its client, Angela Costales of San Diego, needed the drug to control bleeding after a miscarriage in December 2023.
Access to mifepristone, the second drug used in medication abortions, has also faced availability challenges with the most prominent being a challenge to previous government approvals that sought to restrict how the medication can be prescribed. The U.S. Supreme Court rejected the case last week.
Since the court overturned the landmark decision Roe v. Wade in 2022, which legalized access to abortion, the two-drug course has become controversial as many women can obtain it through the mail after a telehealth visit with a physician, in some cases circumventing statewide abortion restrictions.
Though it related to miscarriage rather than abortion, the San Diego situation none-the-less appeared, at least according to the law center’s letter, to have been affected by the broader conversation around abortion.
A visit to the pharmacy of CVS No. 9175 on Clairemont Drive, the letter states, involved vague statements about whether the drug was in stock.
“Ms. Costales, growing increasingly uncomfortable, asked the pharmacist why she could not provide the prescribed medication,” the letter says. “The pharmacist bluntly replied: ‘It doesn’t matter if I have it, I am not comfortable dispensing it to you.’
“The pharmacist then left the counter and did not return.”
Asked to comment on the situation, CVS said in an email that it has a national policy to deal with recalcitrant dispensing.
“We have policies in place to ensure no patient is ever denied access to medication prescribed by a physician based on a pharmacist’s individual religious or moral beliefs,” said representative Mike DeAngelis in an email. “If a pharmacist does share such a belief, they are required to notify us in advance so that we can ensure there are other arrangements in place to ensure the patient’s medication needs are promptly satisfied.”
The drugstore giant did not reply when asked why the policy apparently did not play out as planned during Costales’ visit.
Though the demand letter indicates that the Clairemont Drive pharmacist did not transfer the prescription to another pharmacy, and also “refused to provide a specific address or phone number” for a CVS location able to dispense the medication a doctor prescribed her, a trip to another store on Balboa Avenue did the job without friction.
In an announcement of the letter and its contents, the National Women’s Law Center said it has “received other complaints about wrongful refusals to fill prescriptions related to reproductive care, including birth control.”
Crystal Mojica, a spokesperson for the law center, said, “The law is clear: pharmacies are required to fill legally prescribed medication. We have just sent a demand letter, and CVS can avoid litigation by working productively with us in the ways outlined.”
The Law Center is demanding retraining for all employees at the CVS where the incident occurred; ensuring that every employee at every CVS nationwide understands CVS’s policy that requires that all customers’ pharmacy needs are promptly and completed satisfied; conduct random, regular screenings of pharmacy locations across the country to ensure compliance; and clearly post at every CVS pharmacy a statement of patients’ rights to obtain their prescribed medication. Costales also is seeking monetary relief for the emotional and other harms CVS caused her.
