Walgreens will offer the abortion pill mifepristone at some Pennsylvania stores. Here’s what to know.

Walgreens will begin dispensing the abortion pill mifepristone to patients with a prescription in Pennsylvania and a handful of other states as early as next week, the drugstore chain confirmed Friday.

First reported by the New York Times, Walgreens — as well as some CVS pharmacies in other states — will begin offering the medicine at select locations in the coming weeks. The drugstore chains’ move could make the mifepristone pill — used in more than half of abortions in Pennsylvania and nationally — more accessible as some states limit abortion rights in the wake of the Supreme Court’s 2022 reversal of its landmark Roe v. Wade decision.

Here’s what to know.

Mifepristone is a progesterone-blocking drug used to end a pregnancy. It is typically used in conjunction with another medication, misoprostol.

Mifepristone has been on the market since the Food and Drug Administration approved its use in 2000 to terminate a pregnancy up to seven weeks gestation. In 2016, the FDA expanded that use to 10 weeks. Last year, the FDA changed its guidelines to broaden the availability of the medication to more pharmacies and mail-order companies.

Until recently, the highly regulated medication was only available from doctors specifically licensed to dispense it, and couldn’t be prescribed for pharmacy pick-up.

The FDA modified those guidelines in January 2023, removing the restriction that banned pharmacy dispersal. A handful of pharmacies nationwide last year began dispensing mifepristone, including the Temple University Hospital Outpatient Pharmacy in Philadelphia.

But the announcement Friday by Walgreens and CVS — two of the nation’s largest pharmacy chains — could broadly change that scope. Both drugstore chains said they had completed the FDA’s certification process to dispense the prescribed medication in select stores, and will not distribute the drug by mail. Patients still must have a prescription from a specially licensed doctor to obtain mifepristone from the pharmacies.

CVS has more than 9,000 stores across the country, while Walgreens has more than 8,500 locations.

A Walgreens spokesperson Friday said the pill will be distributed in “select locations” in New York, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, California, and Illinois — all states where abortion remains legal after the Supreme Court’s ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, which said that the Constitution does not protect a person’s right to abortion. That decision left it up to states to decide whether — and when — a person can obtain an abortion. Nearly two dozen states have since banned abortion or significantly restricted access.

The spokesperson declined to elaborate on specific Walgreens locations in Pennsylvania where the drug will be distributed, saying only that the chain is “beginning a phased rollout in select locations to allow us to ensure quality, safety, and privacy for our patients, providers, and team members.”

“In the interests of pharmacist and patient safety, we will not disclose the number of sites per state nor identify the pharmacies that are dispensing,” the company said.

CVS has said it will begin dispensing mifepristone in all of its pharmacies in Massachusetts and Rhode Island in the coming weeks.

According to the New York Times, the pharmacy chains are tracking the possibility of expansion in other states, including Kansas, Montana, and Wyoming, where abortion restrictions are limited or enjoined due to legal challenges.

“Our goal is to gradually expand availability to locations in all legally permissible states in a phased approach,” Walgreens said.

Mifepristone is at the center of a case expected to be heard by the Supreme Court later this month, in which abortion opponents sued the FDA over its approval of the drug, arguing it is “unsafe,” and seeking to ban it nationwide.

An appeals court in August turned down the opponents’ request to revoke the FDA’s decades-old approval of mifepristone, ruling that the lawsuit came too late. However, the court rolled back the FDA’s 2016 actions, effectively banning the medication from being mailed and requiring it to be obtained through an in-person doctor visit. Mifepristone remains widely available due to a 2023 temporary order by the Supreme Court, requested by President Joe Biden’s administration.

» READ MORE: What to know about mifepristone in Pa. following Supreme Court ruling that preserves access for now

If the Supreme Court upholds the appeals court’s ruling, access to the medication may be limited to in-person visits to a doctor. If the ruling allows pharmacies like CVS and Walgreens to continue to dispense mifepristone, that would broaden patients’ access to the drug.

Staff writer Sarah Gantz contributed to this article.