Anti-abortion activists are launching the next phase of their yearslong effort to use environmental protection laws to cut off access to the abortion drug mifepristone, which they see as the main impediment to eliminating abortions after the fall of Roe v. Wade.
The group Students for Life of America spent the last two years collecting and analyzing water samples in different American cities, searching for evidence to support their claim that women having at-home abortions using the drugs and flushing fetal remains poses a threat to the environment.
That work culminated in the release this week of a controversial study purporting to show “significant levels of mifepristone” contaminating the waterways of Austin, Texas; Blacksburg, Virginia; and Carbondale, Illinois. Despite acknowledging there is no proof the mifepristone detected impacts human health, livestock or the environment, the paper warns of potential “deleterious effects on human and animal biology,” including everything from autism to infertility.
Environmental activism is rare for conservatives. But more in the anti-abortion movement are turning to it as federal rules adopted by the Biden administration allowing telehealth prescription and mail delivery of the drug enable a growing number of patients to circumvent state bans on the procedure that Students for Life and others spent half a century fighting for.
