An influential anti-abortion group is rallying its supporters around the country to flood EPA with requests to add mifepristone — a drug used in more than two-thirds of all abortions — to a list of drinking water contaminants tracked by public utilities.
The strategy by Students for Life of America to target EPA’s rule-making process, which grew out of a recent meeting with EPA staff, is the latest move in a yearslong crusade by abortion opponents to use environmental laws to restrict abortion.
By aligning their new campaign with the “Make America Healthy Again” agenda and its concerns about the impact of chemicals on human health, the group hopes their efforts will convince the Trump administration to restrict access to the drug or, at minimum, shape public opinion about its safety.
“People need to understand that they are likely drinking other people’s abortions,” said Student for Life’s head of policy Kristi Hamrick. “Do you really need a test to determine that it’s a bad idea to flush placenta, tissue, blood and human remains into our waterways?”
Though water contamination from all pharmaceuticals is a growing concern, environmental scientists say there is no evidence that mifepristone pollution in particular is harming either people, animals or the environment.
Yet the EPA staff seemed receptive to their message in their meeting, Hamrick said, even suggesting the activists use the upcoming public comment period on the expanded list of water contaminants.
“We found them to be very interested in what we were talking about and informed,” she said, adding that her group hopes to meet with EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin on the issue in January.
As a member of Congress, Zeldin co-sponsored a 2021 bill that would have banned abortion nationwide after 20 weeks of pregnancy.
EPA confirmed to POLITICO that leaders from its Office of Water met with Students for Life in November. Press secretary Brigit Hirsch said the agency “takes the issue of pharmaceuticals in our water systems seriously and employs a rigorous, science-based approach to protect human health and the environment.”
She continued, “As always, EPA encourages all stakeholders invested in clean and safe drinking water to review the proposals and submit comments.”
The anti-abortion group’s new campaign comes as EPA prepares to propose a list of 30 pollutants utilities will have to track in drinking water — a routine update to that list the agency undertakes every five years. Placement on the unregulated contaminants list is a way for EPA to collect nationwide data on chemicals, information that could be used to set federal limits in the future.
While EPA told Students for Life that it was too late to include mifepristone on the proposed list of chemicals to track, Hamrick said, “they said one path forward for us is to ask for the active metabolites in mifepristone to be added to that list, which we could do using the public comment period.”
In response, Students for Life of America is directing its national network of supporters to ask EPA to take action on abortion pills during the upcoming comment period.
“All I want for Christmas is for millions of Americans to let the Trump Administration know that we want assurances that the Make America Healthy Again agenda includes clean water for all life,” said Students for Life President Kristan Hawkins.
The chances of EPA adding mifepristone to the contaminants list in its final rule, even if hundreds or even thousands of anti-abortion activists request it, are slim — but not zero.
Under EPA rules, the agency must first have a verified analytical method for measuring a chemical in water before it can be added to the list. That requirement ensures that every drinking water system in the country that serves 10,000 people or more can monitor for the chemical using the same test. Thus far, no EPA-verified testing method exists for mifepristone.
While one of the more nuanced aspects of national drinking water policy, the list is closely watched by drinking water utilities, which will ultimately bear the costs of testing for included contaminants.
Typically, EPA allows members of the public 60 to 90 days to weigh in on the list before agency staff review the feedback and finalize it. Often those comments are made by drinking water utilities concerned about the costs or the availability of EPA’s chosen testing methods.
Formulating the list is also subject to the Administrative Procedures Act, making it more difficult for EPA to add a contaminant to the final version that is not in the proposed rule. Doing so could prompt lawsuits accusing the agency of acting in an “arbitrary and capricious” manner.
“You can’t just do a bait and switch,” said Betsy Southerland, a former career scientist in EPA’s Office of Water, who left during the first Trump administration.
The previous version of the list, which lasts through the end of this year, includes 29 types of PFAS, endocrine-disrupting chemicals that can be toxic to humans at very low levels, as well as lithium.
Southerland called the idea of adding mifepristone to the list “outrageous,” adding it would take local resources away from monitoring “well-documented contaminants.”
“We have such a huge queue of emerging contaminants that we know are toxic, and we know are in our drinking water and in our fisheries,” she said. “You would be replacing a known toxic chemical for a hypothetical one.”
Though trace amounts of the drug may remain in fetal tissue flushed down the toilet, scientists argue it’s not likely to make it into rivers and streams, let alone tap water.
Students for Life has conducted its own water testing and is hoping to publish the results in a peer-reviewed scientific journal but has not yet done so.
Hamrick stressed that even if the group does not succeed in pressuring EPA to add mifepristone to their mandatory tracking list, the campaign still could prove valuable in spreading their message and turning public opinion against mifepristone — a top goal the anti-abortion movement has highlighted in private meetings.
Recent polling suggests that the efforts of Students for Life and other anti-abortion groups making claims about mifepristone’s risks are having an impact. The nonpartisan health care think tank KFF reported last week that 40 percent of Americans say they are not sure about mifepristone’s safety, while another 18 percent view the pills as either “very unsafe” or “somewhat unsafe.” That marks a sharp rise in skepticism about the pills since 2023, when just 9 percent viewed them as unsafe, and 35 percent said they were unsure.
Abortion opponents — who have made restricting mifepristone a priority in their broader effort to ban abortion nationwide — also have many other irons in the fire.
Dozens of abortion opponents’ GOP allies in Congress signed a June letter urging Zeldin to, among other things, consider the impact of mifepristone on the nation’s drinking water. That letter asked EPA about including mifepristone on its list of unregulated contaminants for monitoring and what resources the agency would need to develop an approved analytical method for testing for mifepristone in water supplies.
GOP lawmakers and outside groups have also demanded the FDA conduct a review of mifepristone — despite more than 100 peer-reviewed studies attesting to its safety and efficacy — and the agency has said such a review is currently underway.
Students for Life has also advocated for state and federal legislation that cites the alleged environmental impact of mifepristone to argue for restrictions on the drug. And its leaders are seeking meetings with FDA Administrator Marty Makary and HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. — hoping in particular that their message will appeal to Kennedy’s environmentalist background.
“This is all-of-the-above strategy,” said Hamrick. “We absolutely, of course, support states and state attorneys general requiring testing, but we do ultimately see it as a responsibility of the federal government.”
