Fourteen Republican-led states are demanding that the Environmental Protection Agency increase scrutiny of at-home abortion drugs for wastewater contamination from at-home abortions.The request, laid out in a letter sent Tuesday from 14 attorneys general, marks the most significant effort in advancing the theory posed by hard-line anti-abortion advocates that self-managed abortions using the abortion pill mifepristone could be contaminating drinking water and in violation of the Safe Drinking Water Act. Missouri’s Republican Attorney General Catherine Hanaway and her 13 colleagues requested that the EPA add mifepristone to other pharmaceuticals listed in the agency’s Contaminant Candidate List. Chemicals on the list are not subject to a legal maximum contaminant level, but they may be subject to monitoring or under consideration for regulation.
“As mifepristone’s use is now at an all-time high, its inclusion on the CCL is a logical step to further investigate the impact of its newfound prevalence on the public health,” the attorneys general wrote.
Mifepristone, which is used in roughly two-thirds of abortions in the United States, is the first pill used in a two-drug medication abortion regimen and has become a flashpoint in the abortion debate since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022.
