EPA to screen America’s drinking water for abortion drugs, other potential pollutants

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced Sept. 9 that it will screen drinking water samples for more than 1,400 potential contaminants, including the two drugs commonly used in a chemical abortion. The announcement came less than two months after a preprint study reported anti-progesterone activity in water samples from three U.S. cities. 

“We have heard loud and clear that Americans are concerned about potential unknown pollutants lurking in their drinking water. The Trump EPA is committed to getting to the bottom of this, so that Americans can feel confident about the safety of their drinking water,” EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin said in a press release. “EPA’s state-of-the-art study will shed light on this issue and complement the actions we are already taking under the Safe Drinking Water Act.”

EPA scientists will use non-targeted analysis, a method that allows researchers to screen water samples for thousands of potential pollutants rather than testing for only a small group of predetermined chemicals, the agency said in the release. The study will collect samples from several locations in different metropolitan areas.

The EPA’s screening library contains mifepristone and misoprostol — the drugs commonly used together in a chemical abortion — among more than 1,400 chemicals, including certain contraceptives and hormones that can also be used in gender “transition” treatments, according to a chemical list released by the agency. 

The list includes more than 1,000 pesticides and pesticide metabolites, more than 250 pharmaceuticals and personal care products, more than 70 per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances — commonly known as PFAS — and other emerging contaminants.

Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said he had unsuccessfully pushed the EPA for decades to conduct such comprehensive testing of drinking water.

“Thanks to Administrator Zeldin’s courage and President Trump’s bold MAHA agenda, we are finally getting it done,” Kennedy said in the release. “EPA is going to search for pharmaceuticals, PFAS, and other contaminants that have gone undetected — and give Americans the truth about what is in their water.”

Students for Life of America (SFLA), which had urged the EPA to test drinking water for mifepristone, welcomed the study as a “victory for common sense.”

“News that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has listened to the voices of thousands of Americans worried about the levels of fertility-crushing pharmaceuticals in the water is a victory for common sense. You don’t have to be pro-life to want crystal-clear drinking water,” SFLA President Kristan Hawkins said in a Sept. 11 statement. 

She argued that the harms of chemical abortion drugs could extend beyond mothers and unborn children, raising concerns that endocrine-disrupting compounds in drinking water could also affect women trying to conceive and endangered species.

“While we are still working for mandated, ongoing testing, this scientific study is an exciting first step,” Hawkins said. 

In a preprint study published July 20, researchers reported detecting anti-progesterone activity in water samples collected in Austin, Texas; Blacksburg, Virginia; and Carbondale, Illinois, as Zeale News previously reported. The researchers expressed the detected activity as “mifepristone equivalents.”

Researchers said at the time that additional testing would be necessary to confirm the source of the activity and assess its potential health effects. Study co-author Elise Rose warned that the findings suggested Americans are “possibly being exposed to an endocrine-disrupting compound without our consent.”