California Gov. Gavin Newsom announced Monday the state will not be doing business with Walgreens Boots Alliance over its decision not to dispense an abortion pill.

In a tweet, Newsom criticized the decision, writing, "California won't be doing business with Walgreens or any company that cowers to the extremists and puts women's lives at risk. We're done."

Gavin Newsom announces California is 'done' with Walgreens due to abortion pill

Walgreens said last week it would not dispense mifepristone in 20 states.

^{Mary Kekatos (ABC News)}

At the health centre where she had gone for treatment, she says she overheard one doctor saying to a colleague: "When will these girls learn to keep their legs closed?"

She was eventually given a pill to end her pregnancy, but she says the nurses were reluctant to treat her and wanted to make her feel guilty: "After I expelled the pregnancy tissue, I could see the foetus."

"The nurses put it in a jar to make sure I saw it and they told me, 'This could have been your child.'"

Argentina relaxed its law on abortion in 2020, allowing a woman to choose to terminate her pregnancy in the first 14 weeks, Previously, it was only allowed in the case of rape or if the woman's life or health was at risk.

The new law allows health workers in Argentina to abstain from performing abortions.

"As soon as the law was passed, I declared myself a conscientious objector," says Dr Carlos Franco, a paediatrician from the same area as María, who estimates that 90% of health workers in the province's main public hospital have done the same.

He says his years studying embryology left him with the belief that life begins at fertilisation.

"My duty, as a doctor, is to take care and protect the human life from the embryonic stage," he adds.

This helps explain why women like María are having so much trouble accessing legal abortions.

Doctors who do agree to perform abortions have been targeted with spurious legal complaints.

In September 2021, one doctor in Salta was briefly detained following an accusation by the aunt of a 21-year-old patient that she had performed an "illegal abortion".

The accusation was untrue, but it took a year for a court to dismiss the case.

Abortion may be legal in Argentina but women still face major obstacles

Abortion may finally be legal in Argentina, but social attitudes in some areas are making it hard for women to exercise their rights.

^{By Agustina Latourrette (BBC News)}