Study Finds Abortion Drugs in US Drinking Water

In 2025, 25 Republican lawmakers “signed a letter calling on the Trump administration to determine whether the abortion pill mifepristone has an environmental impact on the U.S. water system.”

Mifepristone is the first in a set of two drugs that end the life (are used to murder) of an unborn child, typically early in pregnancy (up to about 10 weeks gestational age). This drug is basically an antiprogestin, blocking the woman’s body from receiving the hormone progesterone that allows the uterine lining to accept the baby’s placenta. Unable to receive nourishment from mom due to the lack of progesterone, the baby dies and a second drug induces contractions to deliver the dead baby’s tiny body.

About 63% of abortions today are these chemical abortions (642,700 babies killed in 2023), and an increasing number take place at home. But what happens to the mifepristone after the woman takes it and kills her baby? The baby and the mifepristone leave the woman’s body and are flushed down the toilet to presumably be removed by the wastewater treatment plant—except no one was testing if conventional water treatment removed drugs like mifepristone from drinking water. Turns out, according to a new study, it doesn’t.

This study published in Issues in Law & Medicine found “a statistically significant amount of mifepristone was found in all but one of the nine water sources” that were tested (water came from Austin, TX; Blacksburg, VA; and Carbondale, IL). The study authors write:

Conventional water treatment was not effective for removing this EDC [endocrine-disrupting compound] from water in all cities we tested. Two cities showed significant mean concentrations even in tap water.

What impact does this have on the health and fertility of the people drinking the water or the plants and animals that live in or around the water? No one knows because it’s never been studied! But the study summarizes what we do know about these kinds of compounds that disrupt the endocrine (hormone) system:

Past research has shown that endocrine-disrupting compounds (EDCs), including steroid hormones, synthetic estrogens and progestins found in oral contraceptives, are present in water supplies. This problem remains an environmental and health concern, especially given the widespread use of contraceptives and the increased prevalence of medication abortion in recent years. These compounds have a number of deleterious effects on human and animal biology, particularly aquatic animals. Small amounts of these chemicals (parts per trillion) can affect the endocrine system of animals and humans. Progestins, including specifically the anti-progesterone synthetic steroid hormone mifepristone, have been found to have disruptive effects on the fertility and reproduction of fish. Moreover, further highlighting the potential for environmental toxicity and contamination, the FDA recommends treating any unused mifepristone pills as hazardous waste.

In other words, we don’t know the effect on human and environmental health yet for sure, but it’s probably not good!

According to an article reporting on this story:

“The EPA relied on studies that were done . . . in 1996  . . . to make sure that the excreted chemicals in the wastewater and the thrown away pills . . . would not reach a level that would hinder U.S. fertility rates,” [Vice chairman of the Committee on Health and Human Services in the Kansas House of Representatives Ron] Bryce said. “Since then . . . up to 63% or more of abortions are done by chemical abortions. Maybe—who knows—a million a year. And so the levels of mifepristone in our wastewater have grown dramatically.”

Infertility has skyrocketed . . . 84% between 1990 and 2021 globally. . . . The abortion pill was first approved in the U.S. in 2000 and approved in many European countries in the late 1980s and early ‘90s. In 2021, the study found that more than 110 million women faced infertility, and one in 10 women within the reproductive age range were infertile.

Bryce . . . is calling for a study to be done that analyzes infertility in light of mifepristone in the U.S. water system.

“[A] study that was done about a year ago on female frogs [found that] when they were exposed to mifepristone that is considered the level that is in our drinking water today, they had half as many babies,” he said. “And so we’re looking at fertility rates that are very low in the United States and in the Western civilization. . . . It’s either environmental factors or it’s behavioral factors. It’s probably a combination of the two.  . . . We really need to get to the bottom of the environmental factors that might be contributing to this, and it’s just obvious that we need to look at the levels of mifepristone in our water.” [emphasis added]

Abortion harms everyone, babies first and foremost, but also men and women—even those not involved in any way with abortion.

Abortion advocates love to say that what a woman does with “her body” (but really, we’re talking about a woman’s body and a totally separate body, her unborn child, which is not part of her body but has his or her own DNA—a unique combination of information different to any other human being) is a medical decision between her and her doctor. But abortion doesn’t just impact a woman and her baby, who loses his or her life. This new study highlights yet another way abortion impacts everyone as millions of un-consenting Americans ingest harmful compounds that may wreak havoc on their own endocrine system and their future fertility (not to mention the environmental considerations that also impact everyone in one way or another!).

Abortion harms everyone, babies first and foremost, but also men and women—even those not involved in any way with abortion. This new study is just another example of the consequences of a culture that has abandoned God’s Word as the foundation for morality and has legalized and commercialized the slaughter of the unborn.

Oh, and it’s a good reminder to filter your tap water! The study suggests, “Maximum removal requires tertiary treatment, such as membrane bioreactors [like a reverse osmosis system], oxidation, or ozonation.”

Thanks for stopping by and thanks for praying,
Ken

This item was written with the assistance of AiG’s research team.