Government authorities are launching a study looking for traces of abortion pills in drinking water.
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced earlier this month that it will be conducting a ‘cutting edge scientific study’ that will look for ’emerging’ contaminants in water, including mifepristone and misoprostol, prescription drugs used to induce an abortion or help pass a miscarriage.
The agency said it is planning to pick several locations in metropolitan areas across the country and screen for 1,400 pharmaceuticals, pesticides and other chemicals.
Additionally, the EPA is planning to screen for hormones such as testosterone and progesterone, as well as medications like levonorgestrel, which is used in many contraceptives and the morning after pill.
‘We have heard loud and clear that Americans are concerned about potential unknown pollutants lurking in their drinking water,’ Trump-appointed EPA administrator Lee Zeldin said in a statement.
‘EPA’s state-of-the-art study will shed light on this issue and complement the actions we are already taking under the Safe Drinking Water Act.’
Agency officials stopped short of designating mifepristone and misoprostol as official water contaminants that would require regulation.
Anti-abortion advocates, however, have voiced support for the study in hopes that it may lead to restrictions on accessing the drugs.
EPA administrator Lee Zeldin said that the agency’s ‘state-of-the-art’ study will evaluate levels of ‘unknown pollutants’ in the water
‘It is exciting after a very long journey that’s been almost 10 years, to have this be taken seriously enough to be on an official list,’ Kristi Hamrick, head of policy at Students for Life of America (SFLA), said in a recent interview.
‘But that doesn’t change the fact that there’s a lot of information that we need, for it to be useful for people to know.’
The EPA said it plans to use a non-targeted analysis approach, which allows them to test water samples for multiple substances at once. However, this does not detect actual levels for each chemical, only if they are present.
The testing campaign is not part of the EPA’s Safe Drinking Water Act, which sets legally enforceable standards to limit contaminants.
Environmental scientists state there is no scientific evidence that abortion pills pose a harm to the water supply or to people drinking it.
‘There are no studies finding mifepristone in the water,’ Nathan Donley, environmental health scientist at the Center for Biological Diversity, told The Hill.
‘It’s because those studies haven’t been done, and the reason those studies haven’t been done is because we use so little of this compared to other bona fide water contaminants, and it doesn’t have the chemical hallmarks of known water contaminants.’
A medication abortion is the most common form of abortion in the US. It has drawn increasing attention since the Supreme Court’s 2022 decision to overturn Roe v Wade, which eliminated the federal guarantee to an abortion and returned policy-making power to the states.
Accessing medication abortion through the mail became legal under the Biden administration.
Mifepristone is taken first to dilate the cervix and block progesterone, which is needed to sustain a pregnancy. About 24 hours later, the patient takes misoprostol, a drug that causes the uterus to cramp, contract and expel pregnancy tissue
But several states with restrictive abortion laws have passed legislation aimed at preventing the shipment of medication abortion pills, including Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Missouri, Idaho, South Carolina and North Dakota.
Medical abortion consists of both mifepristone and misoprostol.
Mifepristone is taken first and works by dilating the cervix and blocking the effects of the hormone progesterone, which is needed to sustain a pregnancy.
About 24 hours later, the patient takes misoprostol, a drug used to treat stomach ulcers that causes the uterus to cramp and contract, causing bleeding and expelling of the pregnancy tissue.
Passing the tissue in this manner can be extremely painful, and patients run the risk of not expelling the entire pregnancy, forcing them to undergo a minor surgical procedure called a dilation and curettage (D&C). During a D&C, doctors dilate the cervix and use sharp tools to scrape out the remaining tissue.
The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists advises doctors that a medication abortion is safe for patients up to 70 days of gestation, or 10 weeks of pregnancy.