Rep. Chris Smith (R-NJ), Rep. Josh Brecheen (R-OK), and Sen. James Lankford (R-OK) led 16 members of Congress in sending a comment letter to Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Lee Zeldin, urging the addition of mifepristone, a chemical abortion drug, to the agency’s sixth Contaminant Candidate List (CCL 6), which identifies potential or known contaminants in public water systems that are not currently subject to regulations under U.S. law.

                In the bicameral letter, the Republican lawmakers underscore the dangerous, adverse effects of mifepristone on women—impacting nearly 11% of women who take this baby poison pill—and argue that there is a well-founded concern that mifepristone may be contaminating our public water systems (which deliver water for human consumption) and posing serious environmental and public health threats.

                “In addition to killing unborn babies and threatening the wellbeing or lives of their mothers, mifepristone has the potential to impact our national water system, a danger that was acknowledged by the Food and Drug Administration thirty years ago,” the 19 members of Congress write.

                “In 1996, the FDA Center for Drug Evaluation and Research (CDER) claimed that adverse environmental effects from mifepristone were ‘not anticipated,’ but acknowledged that ‘[m]ifepristone may enter the environment from excretion by patients, from disposal of pharmaceutical waste, or from emissions from manufacturing sites,’” they continue.

                The co-signatories go on to argue that the pervasive use of mifepristone—which has exploded since the Biden Administration removed commonsense medical safeguards and now accounts for two-thirds of all abortions in the United States—“has only increased the potential for mifepristone to ‘enter the environment.’

                “As the use of mifepristone has risen, its impact on drinking water should be closely researched and monitored,” the lawmakers assert.

                In their conclusion, the authors urge the EPA to add mifepristone to CCL 6 to “determine whether the active metabolites that enter our Nation’s water system through mifepristone abortions threaten access to our safe drinking water” and study “whether the level of mifepristone present in the Nation’s water system is significant enough to cause endocrine disruption.”

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