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| photo credit: Mike Mozart / Flickr |
The CVS was fined $10,000 in penalties issued last month. Two pharmacists involved in the mistake risk losing their licenses unless they pay separate fines, complete education courses, and have no further violations over the next year.
Timika Thomas, a mother of four, was prescribed Endometrin, a drug containing progesterone, to aid in her attempt to have another child through IVF. Thomas had two embryos implanted via IVF before this incident.
Progesterone is a pregnancy hormone that helps facilitate the transfer of oxygen and nutrients from a mother's body to her child. Doctors prescribe progesterone during IVF because the process inhibits the body's natural progesterone production.
Progesterone is also prescribed during difficult pregnancies to help prevent miscarriage. Similarly, some doctors prescribe progesterone to help mothers who regret taking the first abortion pill, mifepristone. This can help reverse the effects of mifepristone and save the unborn child's life.
In Thomas's case, CVS provided her with misoprostol. Misoprostol is the second drug in the abortion pill regimen. It induces labor, thereby removing the aborted child from a mother's womb. Court testimony by CVS staff described a series of mistakes leading to Thomas being given the wrong drug.
After Thomas took the drugs, she experienced painful stomach cramping caused by misoprostol. She searched online and found that she was prescribed an abortion pill, so she called CVS. Much like pro-life doctors, CVS pharmacists planned to try and rectify the mistake by getting injectable progesterone to Thomas, but this did not happen until the next day.
Thomas lost both children. It is unclear if the children were killed by misoprostol, or if they just didn't survive the IVF process. Regardless, Thomas's next pregnancy test came back negative.
CVS and Walgreens started carrying abortion pills earlier this year after the Biden FDA approved their distribution at pharmacies. Previously, FDA regulations required that they be distributed by the prescribing physicians.
