Abortion Drug Controversy, Part II: Abortion Chemicals in Our Water
Nov 6, 2025 by FACT
"Environmental protection efforts are necessary to counter the potential harm that chemical abortion drugs are creating for our people, wildlife, and ecosystems. The American people deserve to know the negative effects caused by chemical abortion drugs."
—Letter from former U.S. Senator Marco Rubio and Representative Josh Brecheen, et al., to former EPA Administrator Michael Regan, May 29, 2024
—Letter from former U.S. Senator Marco Rubio and Representative Josh Brecheen, et al., to former EPA Administrator Michael Regan, May 29, 2024
The topic of abortion drugs is rife with concerns and controversy. Not only are the pills 22x more dangerous for mothers than the FDA currently claims, but recent studies show the chemicals could be making their way into our nation’s water supply, impacting the health of millions of Americans.
A new report from Liberty Counsel Action (LCA) explained that when the FDA initially approved mifepristone, the first pill in a two-drug regimen used to terminate first-trimester pregnancies, it “failed to address the issue of how the fetal remains would be disposed of, essentially ignoring the reality that in many cases, said remains would enter U.S. water systems in violation of various fetal disposal and medical waste laws.”
Additionally, the FDA failed to consider that when the drug is ingested by the mother, it is broken down into “metabolites,” which are “small biochemical molecules that are eventually excreted by the body.” More research is needed to determine if those particles are contaminating our water supply. LCA noted the potential danger of that by explaining mifepristone “acts as an endocrine disruptor by blocking progesterone, a vital fertility hormone. Relatedly, infertility rates are on the rise and now affect 1 in 6 individuals. While there is a clear correlation between the increase in chemical abortions and increased rate of infertility, further study is sorely needed to establish whether there is causation.”
This isn’t a new issue. In 2024, 11 members of Congress wrote a letter to the Environmental Protection Agency explaining that the “full impact of mifepristone has never been sufficiently studied. When the FDA approved the drug in 2000, it relied on a 1996 environmental assessment that failed to consider that human fetal remains and the drug’s active metabolites would be making their way into wastewater systems across the U.S. Any studies that have been conducted in the past should be repeated and updated to reflect the fact that the drug is far more prevalent today than it was three decades ago. In addition, the EPA should study the impact of the ‘byproducts’ of mifepristone, such as the placental tissue, fetal remains, and active metabolites that are being flushed into our nation’s wastewater system.”
LCA President John Stemberger shed light on what the organization’s recent study uncovered:
[Our research] document[s] the widespread contamination of our water from 700,000 women who are being instructed by abortion providers to deliver their babies in the toilet, which then goes [into] local city sewers [and] water plants,” he explained. “The contamination is there from not just the biohazard waste, which Students for Life estimates somewhere between 40 to 60 tons annually of waste is going into our water supply, but also mifepristone, which is not an organic drug. It doesn’t dissolve in the body like a Tylenol would. It [is a] synthetic drug, it has a half-life. So its therapeutic effect continues on after it exits the woman’s body and continues on in the water. … [There are] micro doses of mifepristone that we’re bathing in or drinking … which is not being removed at all by normal water treatment plants. … It could be affecting miscarriages, could be affecting the infertility rate, and actually there [are] just a lot of questions we don’t even know because the EPA is not studying this. The FDA is not studying [it.]
This research is incredibly alarming. Thankfully, the EPA is taking action.
The EPA has instructed scientists to determine if a method to detect traces of abortion pills in wastewater could be developed.
“While no current EPA-approved such methods currently exist, new methods can be developed, two anonymous sources recently told the New York Times,” Life Site News reported.
We urge the EPA to fast-track the development of such a method and determine once and for all how chemical abortions are impacting the health and well-being of all Americans.
“[I]f a hospital was dumping biohazard waste of any type regularly as a matter of course into their toilets instead of properly disposing of it as they should, it would be a national scandal, but yet the entire abortion industry is getting away with instructing mothers to just deliver dead babies in the toilet without regard to this,” Stemberger added.
The FDA’s recent approval of a new generic abortion drug will only exacerbate this issue. It’s time for real action.
This is part two in a two-part series examining the controversy surrounding chemical abortions. Click here for part one.