1). “No, They Didn't Find Mifepristone in the Water”, Jul 27, 2026, Jessica Valenti, Abortion, Every Day, at < https://jessica.substack.com/
2). “Weaponizing Water: How the Campaign Against Medication Abortion Co-opts Environmental Policy”,Dec 2025, Candace Gibson & Anna Bernstein, Guttmacher Institute, at <https://www.guttmacher.org/2025/12/weaponizing-water-how-campaign-against-medication-abortion-co-opts-environmental-policy
3). “Activists ‘throwing everything' they can against abortion turn to wastewater data: Anti-abortion activists are hoping to get the attention of an administration that has embraced theories shunned by mainstream science about Tylenol, peptides and vaccines.”, Jul 26, 2026, Alice Miranda Ollstein & Ariel Wittenberg, Politico, at < https://www.politico.com/news/
4). “Texas 'Clarified' Its Abortion Law. Then This Happened. Lynn Callaway's fight for answers.”, Jul 24, 2026, Jessica Yellin Interviews Lynn Callaway and her attorney, News not Noise, at < https://
5). “Surgeon General suggests high measles counts could be tied to abortion opposition: CDC data show Florida had 141 measles cases as of July 23.”, Jul 24, 2026, Christine Sexton, Florida Phoenix, at < https://floridaphoenix.com/
6). “Abortion returns to southwest Missouri after more than two decades without local access: A Planned Parenthood clinic began providing medication abortion Monday while also expanding pain management for IUD placements and biopsies”, Jul 27, 2026, Anna Spoerre, Missouri Independent, at < https://missouriindependent.
7). “On the Frontlines of the Abortion War: Death Threats and Arsons”, Jan 29, 2023, Vice News, duration of video 9:20, at < https://www.youtube.com/watch?
~~ recommended by desmond ~~
Introduction by desmond: The indispensable Abortion, Every Day recently published an article that looked at a wide range of Abortion and Reproductive Healthcare issues in Item 1)., “No, They Didn't Find ….”, an article that included a discussion of the absurd, if ongoing, assertion that tiny residues of Mifepristone found in wastewater and in the general environment pose a risk to public health. More detailed discussions of this ridiculous political project of the Forced-Pregnancy / Forced-Birth initiative are provided in Item 2)., “Weaponizing Water: ….”; and Item 3)., “Activists ‘throwing everything' ….”.
Item 2). notes that: “The FDA denied these citizen petitions, noting that the petitioners provided 'no evidence showing that bodily fluids from patients who have used mifepristone (a one-time, single-dose drug product) is causing harm to the nation’s aquatic environment or any endangered species.'
“Despite this lack of evidence, opponents of abortion see opportunities for their environmental claims to gain traction within the anti-science and anti-abortion Trump administration, as well as with potential allies in Congress.”
The most important point here is that the Forced-Pregnancy / Forced-Birth movement, having realized that direct discussions and initiatives to end abortion access and reproductive healthcare rights are extremely unpopular, particularly with young reproductive age American women, is changing its emphasis. The environment and issues related to it are, in contrast, very popular with young people. So a deceptive campaign that purports to protect the water supply, even though it is absurd, looks like a good gambit for the leadership of the Forced-Pregnancy / Forced-Birth movement.
The negative consequences, for some people, of the far-right's anti-science and anti-abortion agenda are examined in Item 4)., “Texas 'Clarified' ….” and in Item 5)., “Surgeon General suggests ….”. Item 5 draws an unlikely connection between medication abortion and the fifth worst number of cases in the current U.S. Measles outbreak in Florida. While Item 6)., “Abortion returns to southwest Missouri ….” discusses the good news that a Planned Parenthood Reproductive Healthcare clinic has opened in Springfield, Missouri for the first time in 25 years and will provide medication abortion along with a wide range of other Sexual Healthcare services. Finally Item 7)., “On the Frontlines ….”, features interviews with 4 different people who have been involved in the struggles around Abortion Services and Reproductive Healthcare Rights.
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Antis' Junk Science Water Study, Debunked
THE QUICK & DIRTY:
No, They Didn’t Find Mifepristone in the Water: Antis’ new study is full of shit, not abortion pills.
No, They Didn’t Find Mifepristone in the Water
For years, Students for Life (SFL) has claimed that Americans are “drinking other people’s abortions.” Now they say they’ve got a peer-reviewed study to prove it.
The group’s press release declares that “testing shows abortion drug mifepristone in drinking water,” pointing to a study claiming “significant levels of mifepristone” in water samples from three cities. SFL president Kristan Hawkins says it proves “we were right all along.”
The problem? This study, published by anti-abortion authors in an anti-abortion publication, did not find mifepristone in the water. In fact, theydidn’t even test for it.
First, a step back. If you’re unfamiliar with this bizarre claim, read my explainer below:
The short version is that antis know Americans hate abortion bans, so they’re focusing on the environment as a way to restrict abortion without sparking voter outrage. In fact, the campaign was made-for-MAHA: once RFK’s popularity took off, the group pivoted from claiming mifepristone was harming animal habitats to insisting the drug made Americans infertile.
Most incredibly, they don’t actually believe any of it. Vice president Kristi Hamrick admitted as much during a 2025 conference: “This is not because the environment was my first weapon of choice…I’m for using the devil’s own tools against them.”
None of this has stopped conservatives from weaponizing the lie: in April, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) recommended that states test their drinking water for abortion medication and birth control, putting the drugs on a federal list of potential “contaminants.”
All of which is to say, as ridiculous as it all sounds—this is serious. Now, onto the actual study:
The research is published in Issues in Law & Medicine, a journal run by the Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine—a virulently anti-abortion organization that has actually sued the FDA over mifepristone. So when they say the study is “peer-reviewed,” they mean it’s co-signed by other anti-abortion activists.
The authors are unqualified anti-abortion activists. Elise Rose is a “scholar” at the Charlotte Lozier Institute (CLI), the research arm of Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America. Her co-author, Michael Varveris, is a concierge-medicine doctor who does body contouring in Florida and sells “anti-aging” supplements.
Again, the kicker is that they didn’t actually test the water for mifepristone. Instead, they used a test that can tell whether something is blocking progesterone—not what that something actually is. And as experts pointed out in POLITICO, the ‘researchers’ failed to conduct further testing that could specifically identify mifepristone. That means what the pair found could be an insecticide, flame retardant, or even sunscreen.
Even if the researchers had actually found mifepristone—which they didn’t—the amount was so tiny that you’d have to drink nearly 5 million liters of water to consume the equivalent of a single clinical dose. (For reference, that’s about two Olympic-sized swimming pools.)
Unfortunately, it might not matter that the paper is bunk. Look at what happened with the EPPC’s junk science study on mifepristone: our side didn’t issue a take down quickly or strongly enough, and now it’s part of the mainstream conversation on abortion. If SFL can get just a few media outlets to take the study seriously—or if Republicans are able to cite this ‘research’ without immediate and brutal pushback—we’re going to end up with another misinformation nightmare.
Extra credit: check out the Guttmacher Institute’s terrific policy analysis on ‘abortion in the water’
In the States: Florida, Maryland, Kentucky, Utah & More
Last week, Florida Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo said that the state’s measles outbreak could be tied to abortion. Are you tired? I’m tired!
During a Friday press conference, Ladapo said that because so many cases were reported at a private Catholic college, the issue may be that students didn’t get the vaccine because it’s “developed with the cells that are a progeny from…an aborted fetus.”
“Whether there’s a connection between the fact that, you know, some of the students at this university chose not to receive that vaccine, and it happens to be a vaccine that is related to the practice of abortion, I’m not sure.”
Meanwhile, Maryland programs have lost $3 million in vital federal funding thanks to the Trump administration’s obsession with jacking up the teen pregnancy rate. Remember: the White House cut $67 million from Teen Pregnancy Prevention programs last month, claiming that the lessons were explicit or pornographic.
Tellingly, HHS didn’t respond to requests from Maryland Matters asking for examples of lessons that “promoted sexual activity.” That hasn’t stopped local conservative groups from celebrating the federal cuts: Jeffrey Trimbath of the Maryland Family Institute called the state’s teen pregnancy prevention programs “indecent” and “immoral.”
The truth? “Teen pregnancy is at the lowest rates that it has been at in many, many years,” Robyn Elliott at the Women’s Law Center of Maryland says. “Look at the data.”
Speaking of data, let’s turn to Kentucky—where the state’s abortion ban is pushing healthcare providers to study and practice elsewhere. In an op-ed at the Courier Journal, registered nurse and public health graduate student Jordan Cobb warns that the next generation of medical professionals don’t want to practice in a state where they can be arrested for doing their jobs:
“A survey of Kentucky medical students conducted by medical students at the University of Louisville found that 85.6% disagreed with the state’s abortion policies, 87.5% believed the laws negatively affect public health and nearly three-quarters said they would consider completing their residency training elsewhere because of Kentucky’s current laws.”
Planned Parenthood wants a Utah Supreme Court justice disqualified from hearing a case that could determine abortion rights in the state. That’s because just before taking the bench in 2025, Justice John Nielsen argued in an amicus brief that Utah’s ban doesn’t violate the state constitution.
“The rules about recusals are objective and clear,” said Shireen Ghorbani, president of Planned Parenthood Association of Utah. “A judge should recuse when their impartiality might be reasonably questioned.”
Nielsen also wrote a brief arguing for a constitutional amendment that would let the Legislature repeal citizen-passed ballot initiatives. And we know what that is all about.
Right now, abortion is legal until 18 weeks of pregnancy; that’s because the state Supreme Court upheld a block on a near-total abortion ban that went into effect after Roe was overturned. But if the Court hears the case again—with a different makeup and an anti-abortion justice—that ban could come back to haunt Utah women.
Let’s be clear: this is why Utah Republicans nominated Nielsen in the first place. I’ll keep you updated as I learn more.
Quick hits:
The Planned Parenthood in Springfield, Missourijust started prescribing abortion medication;
The Copper Courierhas profiled the doctor who helped roll back Arizona’s abortion restrictions;
Live Action (🚩) is blasting the Massachusetts bill that would expand abortion access after 24 weeks, claiming abortion is never necessary to save someone’s health or life;
And don’t miss this conversation that fellow Substacker Jessica Yellin had with a Texas woman who was refused miscarriage treatment at two different emergency rooms.
🚨 Language Watch: Ban is Back 🚨
You all know I’m obsessed with anti-abortion messaging tactics, and this latest one is a fucking trip. Kelsey Pritchard, the communications director at Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, told the Daily Signal (🚩) today what message their canvassers are bringing to voters in battleground states. See if you can spot what she’s doing here:
“It’s that the Democrats have become the party of the position of no limits whatsoever on abortion, and if they get a majority, and they will pass the so-called ‘Women’s Protection Act’ and ban states from having pro-life laws and establish abortion at any point in pregnancy in every single state across the nation.”
That’s right—they’ve brought ban back, baby!
If you’ve been reading AED for a while, you probably remember that the anti-abortion movement made a conscious decision to stop using the word ban after Dobbs. Instead, we saw the rise of terms like minimum national standard, reasonable restrictions, and consensus legislation—all phrases that mean ban but don’t sound as scary. SBA even convinced Virginia candidates to run ads that promised, “it’s not a ban!”
It’s incredible, really: their policies are so unpopular, they can’t even call them by name anymore. Now, four years after the end of Roe, ban is so toxic they want to saddle Democrats with it.
I have to admit, it’s kinda brilliant. In the same way they used consensus legislation to mask the fact that nobody wants abortion bans, they’re using “banning pro-life laws” to make it seem like it’s Democrats forcing policies that violate voters’ wishes.
I’m willing to bet that we’re going to see a lot more of this messaging in the months to come—so keep your eye out. And if you spot it out there in the wild, let me know!
Voters Care About Abortion—When They Hear About It
While we’re on messaging, let’s talk about what works for our side. New polling from Reproductive Freedom for All/Impact Research found that battleground voters see support for a national abortion ban as a “dealbreaker” for politicians, and that eight in ten say it’s important for lawmakers to protect access to reproductive healthcare.
Those are all fantastic numbers, so what’s the problem? Well, Impact reports, “we have a believability gap” to deal with.
“Most battleground voters are not hearing about the issue of abortion, so while many express concerns about Republican policies that restrict access to abortion, they also believe these policies are unlikely to happen.”
This is part of the reason I complain so much about the lack of mainstream abortion coverage—and why I do this work. People care about abortion rights deeply, but they often have no idea what’s going on because they’re not seeing the consequences of bans. And, of course, Republicans are doing an excellent job coveringthose consequences up.
When voters do hear about abortion, these are the messages Impact found especially resonant:
I’d add something to that list: it’s not just that Republican policies are causing women to die—and it’s more than ‘their priorities are out of whack’. It’s that the GOP is obsessed with women’s bodies at the expense of everything else—young women’s bodies, especially. I’m working on a column that I’ll share soon: it’s about Republicans as the Party of Peepers. 👀
The awful truth is that with or without media coverage, Americans will find out about the consequences of bans one way or another: the longer these laws exist, the more likely voters are to be impacted themselves, or know someone who has been.
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Weaponizing Water: How the Campaign Against Medication Abortion Co-opts Environmental Policy
Abortion pills are a critical option for people seeking to end a pregnancy, especially those living in US states with abortion bans who cannot travel out of state for care. In 2023, medication abortion accounted for 63% of all clinician-provided abortions in states without total bans. Given the pivotal role of these medications in preserving abortion access, anti-abortion policymakers and advocates are resorting to increasingly unscientific, unconventional tactics to spread mis- and disinformation about medication abortion and about mifepristone, one of two drugs used in most medication abortions in the United States.
In a disturbing new strategy, anti-abortion policymakers are attempting to weaponize environmental laws and regulations, citing false claims that medication abortion pollutes US waterways and drinking water. Equitable access to clean and safe drinking water is a central component of community safety and sustainability—and a key priority for both the environmental and reproductive justice movements. But these efforts by anti-abortion policymakers do not target the known contaminants that make drinking water unsafe or their unequal burden on communities. They also fail to address the agricultural and industrial byproducts that are the leading polluters of water supplies, or the environmental impacts of other trace pharmaceuticals found in wastewater. Instead, this strategy is designed to stigmatize medication abortion and impose an exceptional level of regulation and surveillance on the use of mifepristone and misoprostol that is not applied to other pharmaceuticals. This analysis will explore state and federal efforts designed to restrict access to medication abortion through environmental policy and explain how these efforts are not grounded in science but rather in a broader anti-abortion agenda.
Environmental Attacks on Medication Abortion Are Not Grounded in Evidence or Expertise
The selective regulation of medication abortion through environmental law is a misleading and blatant ploy to stigmatize and restrict abortion access. This tactic relies on a series of baseless claims that range from allegations about dangerous levels of mifepristone contaminating the waterways and surrounding ecosystems to suggestions that the drug is present in drinking water—and even going so far as to claim that expelled tissue from abortion is a risk to the environment. In reality, all medications, including common over-the-counter medications like ibuprofen, can be found in trace amounts in wastewater after they are excreted from the human body. Medical waste tissue from an abortion is typically indistinguishable from that of a miscarriage or even a heavy period. While there is research indicating that other drugs present in wastewater, such as antibiotics and anti-inflammatories, may have a negative impact on aquatic and other ecosystems, there is no evidence to suggest that mifepristone is harming the environment or people’s health. These ideological attacks on mifepristone run counter to the expertise of scientists, advocates and civil servants who are actually working to improve the quality of our water and the environment.
Given the lack of evidence for these professed environmental concerns, the recent proliferation of regulatory bills can be best understood in the context of ongoing attacks on medication abortion and increased misinformation targeting mifepristone. Anti-abortion groups and policymakers have escalated these attacks in recent years, using junk science and false narratives to push for increased restrictions and ultimately a national ban on medication abortion. This includes miscategorizing routine follow-up care and known side effects of medication abortion as adverse events and using other scare tactics to stigmatize mifepristone—despite the broad scientific consensus regarding the drug’s safety and efficacy, based on decades of rigorous research.
Weaponizing State Environmental Policy Against Medication Abortion
In 2025, anti-abortion policymakers introduced nine bills in seven states that use environmental policies and deceptive claims about water pollution to target medication abortion. These bills employ a variety of tactics to restrict access to medication abortion, including selective and arbitrary testing of drinking water and public water systems, liability mandates for pharmaceutical manufacturers of medication abortion pills, bans on telehealth for the provision of medication abortion, and requirements that individuals dispose of embryonic and fetal tissue in medical waste kits. While these bills have not been passed into law, they pose serious threats to medication abortion access and some will likely be re-introduced during the 2026 state legislative sessions.
Requiring arbitrary water system tests
Legislation introduced in Texas, Wyoming and Wisconsin contained provisions that require testing for the presence of medication abortion in water systems, a selective and unsupported measure that would pose serious logistical and financial challenges. One of Texas’s bills would have required the state to conduct quarterly testing of their wastewater treatment plants for traces of mifepristone, along with other chemical components found in certain forms of contraception and treatments for gender-affirming care. Wyoming’s bill would have tasked the state’s Environmental Quality Council with testing community water systems and public water supplies for byproducts of medication abortion. To implement these provisions, Wyoming would need to divert budgetary resources from other areas, train or hire staff, and create new protocols and regulations. During a hearing on Wyoming’s bill, the water quality administrator for the state Department of Environmental Equality stated that her division lacked both the capability and the established protocols needed to test for mifepristone in public water systems. Wisconsin’s recently introduced legislation requires wastewater treatment plants to regularly test for the presence of endocrine disruptors, chemicals with potential hormonal impacts that come from a range of everyday products but which the bill attributes (without evidence) to mifepristone.
Imposing baseless liability on manufacturers of medication abortion pills
In a selective application of environmental accountability concepts to medication abortion, bills introduced in Wyoming, Montana, Maine, West Virginia, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin included arbitrary and unnecessary provisions that would have regulated how pharmaceutical manufacturers dispose of medication abortion pills and components. These measures would have made manufacturers legally and financially responsible for cleanup, remediation and preventative measures if components of medication abortion are found in wastewater and other water systems, despite a lack of evidence these components harm the environment or human health. The concept of producer liability is common in environmental law, especially in the regulation of hazardous products such as electronics and lithium batteries, and increasingly in the regulation of some pharmaceuticals. But the selective targeting of medication abortion pills for regulation without any evidence of harmful impact exposes these measures as arbitrary and covert efforts to restrict and stigmatize abortion access.
Banning telehealth provision of medication abortion
Framed as environmental protection and concern for public health, most of the bills discussed above (excluding Pennsylvania’s legislation) featured provisions that would undercut telehealth provision of medication abortion, harming patients who need or prefer this method of access. These provisions would have required providers to dispense medication abortion in person and mandated in-person follow-up visits. If providers did not comply with these in-person dispensing and follow-up provisions, they would have faced criminal charges as well as fines. Because many clinics have closed post-Dobbs due to the hostile political landscape, these provisions would exacerbate logistical and other barriers to care for patients. Those living in rural and other areas with shortages of abortion providers would likely need to travel even greater distances for care. The telehealth restrictions introduced in the Montana and Maine bills would have entirely eliminated access to medication abortion in these states, neither of which currently have restrictions in place that target medication abortion.
Requiring medical waste kits to shame patients and punish providers
Based on unsubstantiated claims that expelled tissue from medication abortion is contaminating drinking water, the purportedly environmental bills highlighted above would have imposed unnecessary waste-handling requirements on patients and providers. Many of these bills would have required providers to give patients medical waste kits to collect and return tissue for disposal by the clinic. Forcing patients to comply with these policies would not only impose logistical burdens with regard to collection, transportation and scheduling, but would also stigmatize these patients for seeking care. Providers would likely face serious administrative and financial challenges in implementing these provisions, and some bills would have imposed criminal penalties for providers who failed to do so.
Contributing to a culture of surveillance
Although logistically challenging, tracing and testing wastewater for tiny quantities of mifepristone and other byproducts of medication abortion could potentially increase the surveillance of individuals who self-manage their abortions—stoking fear and confusion for those seeking care. At the same time, the supposedly environmental bills discussed above subject both patients and providers to a new set of bureaucratic requirements that effectively surveil their behavior and threaten their criminalization.
Already, people seeking and providing abortion face threats to their privacy and security from the weaponization of digital tools, which often track location and activity data. Providers contend with state-mandated abortion reporting laws that can be used for legitimate public health purposes but are often misused by abortion opponents to threaten patient and provider safety. These proposed measures reveal how the anti-abortion movement is increasingly using tools of surveillance to deter individuals from seeking care and providers from offering care.
Using Federal Environmental Policy to Restrict Medication Abortion Access
Although the bulk of recent efforts to restrict mifepristone through environmental law have been pursued at the state level, many anti-abortion advocates see federal environmental policy under the Trump–Vance administration as a way to further restrict abortion access nationwide. Of course, federal environmental laws were enacted to protect US waterways and water supplies from pollutants: the Clean Water Act and the Safe Drinking Water Act, respectively, regulate the treatment and discharge of wastewater and guarantee the quality of peoples’ drinking water in the United States. These laws are implemented and enforced by the Environmental Protection Agency and state and municipal agencies.
Some anti-abortion groups, however, see these laws as potential weapons in their efforts to restrict medication abortion access and remove mifepristone from the market. They have also repeatedly attempted to use baseless claims of environmental contamination to question the FDA’s regulation of mifepristone. Such claims have been made despite the FDA’s assessment of mifepristone, in accordance with the National Environmental Policy Act, which found that the medication “can be manufactured, used and disposed of without any expected adverse environmental effects.”
One anti-abortion group first petitioned the FDA in 2022 demanding that prescribers of mifepristone give patients medical waste kits—claiming, without scientific evidence, that both products of conception and mifepristone were harmful to the environment. A second citizen petition filed the following year made further baseless claims about mifepristone as a danger to US waterways. The FDA denied these citizen petitions, noting that the petitioners provided “no evidence showing that bodily fluids from patients who have used mifepristone (a one-time, single-dose drug product) is causing harm to the nation’s aquatic environment or any endangered species.”
Despite this lack of evidence, opponents of abortion see opportunities for their environmental claims to gain traction within the anti-science and anti-abortion Trump administration, as well as with potential allies in Congress. This past June, 25 anti-abortion members of Congress submitted a letter to the EPA with a list of questions related to mifepristone—including whether the agency has a method of detecting the medication in the water supply. Although lawmakers have not yet received a formal response from the agency, recent reporting suggests that senior EPA officials directed scientists to assess whether such detection methods were available and were told they could be developed, though they do not currently exist.
Anti-abortion groups have ramped up these efforts in recent months, meeting with EPA staff as the agency carries out a routine update to its list of pollutants that must be tracked in drinking water. Although it is too late for mifepristone to be added to the list, anti-abortion groups are using the regulation's comment period as an opportunity to launch a renewed campaign against medication abortion.
Clean Water and the Health of Communities Are at Risk—But Not from Medication Abortion
While the anti-abortion opposition continues to use environmental laws to stoke confusion and fear about medication abortion, reproductive justice and environmental rights advocates have long fought for safe, clean water for their communities. The systematic and disproportionate placement of polluting sites in communities of color—commonly known as environmental racism—ensures that the health impacts of environmental pollutants are not felt equally. Advocates have highlighted the harms caused by contaminated drinking water and its impacts on Black communities, particularly for children and pregnant people. Residents of Flint, Michigan continue to battle illness and disability caused by lead poisoning—a direct result of decisions by state and local officials to replace the city’s water supply.
In the United States, agricultural practices are far and away the leading polluter of water supplies, due primarily to the use of fertilizers, pesticides and concentrated animal feeding operations. Farmworkers and their families, who are disproportionately Latino and immigrants, are at particular risk of exposure to these chemicals. Environmental justice advocates have raised concerns about the use of pesticides, such as atrazine, that are used in agricultural operations and their harmful impacts on humans, animals, ecosystems and drinking water. Atrazine is one of over a thousand known or suspected endocrine disruptors, which are associated with a number of health issues, in addition to impacting wildlife. Anti-abortion activists appear to be unconcerned with such well-established water-borne threats to human health and the environment and instead co-opt environmental legislation and regulation for the narrow goal of eliminating abortion access. Meanwhile, the infrastructure and regulation needed to protect public health and safe drinking water continue to be gutted by the judiciary and policymakers—putting communities, particularly communities of color, at even greater risk from legitimate environmental threats.
Communities Need Clean Water, Not Abortion Surveillance
Policymakers should push back on baseless environmental claims about medication abortion and instead advance evidence-based protections for our water and environment. It is also critical that experts and advocates denounce water policies focused on medication abortion for what they are: an effort to surveil, restrict and eventually ban abortion care. As we have seen in Texas, such pseudo-environmental tactics can also be easily extended to surveil and restrict access to gender-affirming care and contraception.
Despite anti-abortion groups’ attempts to weaponize environmental laws to restrict reproductive autonomy, the fight for environmental justice and reproductive justice are in fact inextricably linked, rooted in the recognition that communities need clean air and water to be able to raise children in a safe and healthy environment. Instead of singling out medication abortion for unscientific and ideological attacks, policymakers should advance a broad and equitable environmental agenda that ensures that everyone has access to safe drinking water and healthy, sustainable communities.
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Activists ‘throwing everything' they can against abortion turn to wastewater data
Anti-abortion activists are hoping to get the attention of an administration that has embraced theories shunned by mainstream science about Tylenol, peptides and vaccines.
Anti-abortion activists are launching the next phase of their yearslong effort to use environmental protection laws to cut off access to the abortion drug mifepristone, which they see as the main impediment to eliminating abortions after the fall of Roe v. Wade.
The group Students for Life of America spent the last two years collecting and analyzing water samples in different American cities, searching for evidence to support their claim that women having at-home abortions using the drugs and flushing fetal remains poses a threat to the environment.
That work culminated in the release this week of a controversial study purporting to show “significant levels of mifepristone” contaminating the waterways of Austin, Texas; Blacksburg, Virginia; and Carbondale, Illinois. Despite acknowledging there is no proof the mifepristone detected impacts human health, livestock or the environment, the paper warns of potential “deleterious effects on human and animal biology,” including everything from autism to infertility.
Environmental activism is rare for conservatives. But more in the anti-abortion movement are turning to it as federal rules adopted by the Biden administration allowing telehealth prescription and mail delivery of the drug enable a growing number of patients to circumvent state bans on the procedure that Students for Life and others spent half a century fighting for.
Furious that the number of people terminating pregnancies has increased since the fall of Roe, cutting off access to mifepristone, which is used more than two-thirds of abortions, has become the movement’s top priority. As other groups sued doctors, drafted state and federal legislation, petitioned for regulatory action and mounted consumer boycotts, tapping into environmental law became a key tactic in Students For Life’s efforts to put restrictions on the pill without having to go through a gridlocked Congress.
“We developed a strategy of throwing everything we possibly can against chemical abortion, because we have far too many years of experience in the pro-life movement of hanging our hope on one specific strategy, one specific piece of legislation, to only be disappointed,” Kristan Hawkins, the president of Students for Life of America, said in an interview. “It’s time to press go and pull all the levers.”
Publishing a single study, in a journal run by anti-abortion physicians, isn’t going to realign the science around the medication. But other anti-abortion groups or elected officials may pick up the study and embrace its findings, or commission their own follow-up research. And as abortion pill use continues to surge despite state attempts to ban them, activists are betting the paper proves compelling to an administration that has embraced and acted on theories shunned by mainstream academia and the medical field on Tylenol, peptides and vaccines.
Several environmental experts flagged flaws in the study’s methodology, telling POLITICO its conclusions are “misleading,” “poor quality” and “should not be considered in environmental or public health decision-making.”
Still, over the last few years, the group’s theory that the rise in at-home abortions with mifepristone could be contaminating the water supply has gained traction on the right — cited in congressional hearings, referenced in state legislation and lawsuits and endorsed by most Republican state attorneys general. Yet it has also been met with skepticism even within the anti-abortion movement, which the activists are now hoping to overcome with the new data.
“One study isn’t going to make or break the case, but it can change the conversation,” said Patrick Brown, a fellow with the anti-abortion think tank Ethics and Public Policy Center.
He pointed to scientific advancements around fetal development in the 1980s as ultrasounds became more common as a catalyst for the movement’s success banning a commonly used surgical method for abortions later in pregnancy.
“Rigorously done science can have an impact,” he said.
A preprint of the wastewater study the activists have hinged their hopes on was posted online by the journal Issues in Law and Medicine, which is run by the anti-abortion physicians who failed to convince the Supreme Court to ban abortion pills in 2024, and was co-authored by a researcher who has been “working for the prolife cause since 1968.”
Though preprints are typically drafts of studies posted online prior to peer review, the journal’s editor said it went through a peer review process and will be published in the forthcoming edition of Issues in Law and Medicine.
In the meantime, anti-abortion activists are forging ahead with a blitz of actions to pressure regulators to impose restrictions on the pills.
“This paper is going to be a tremendous help,” said Hawkins.
They sent the study on Wednesday to Environmental Protection Agency staff, who are currently reviewing and updating the nation’s water contamination rules, and who met with them earlier this year about including abortion pills in the list of pharmaceuticals monitored in U.S. waterways.
EPA spokesperson Brigit Hirsch confirmed receiving the new data from Students for Life, and said in a statement that the agency is still going through months of public comments from anti-abortion activists and others on the issue.
“EPA 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 said.
“We developed a strategy of throwing everything we possibly can against chemical abortion, because we have far too many years of experience in the pro-life movement of hanging our hope on one specific strategy, one specific piece of legislation, to only be disappointed.” — Kristan Hawkins, president of Students for Life of America
Students for Life is also using the study in its petitions to the FDA — which is in the middle of a review of the pills’ safety prompted in part by data gathered by another anti-abortion group — to ban telehealth prescription and mail delivery of the drug or pull them from the market entirely. The agency’s acting leader Kyle Diamantas, on a call with Students for Life earlier this year, promised to be “the most pro-life head of FDA we’ve ever had.”
The FDA did not respond to questions about its interactions with anti-abortion activists and whether it will consider the new paper as it reviews regulations on mifepristone.
At the same time, the group is making overtures to activists across Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s Make America Healthy Again movement and producing commercials set to air after the midterms that will pressure state attorneys general to use environmental laws to bring charges against abortion pill providers.
Students for Life is also briefing GOP members of Congress and state legislatures — several of whom have signed letters to the Trump administration and co-sponsored bills to roll back access to abortion pills because of their alleged environmental impact.
Even if the new wastewater study doesn’t immediately “tip the scales,” Brown, the fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, said, it’s part of the broader movement’s willingness to experiment and try a variety of tactics until one succeeds — the same strategy that ultimately toppled Roe.
“There is some strength in letting a thousand flowers bloom.”
‘Unsubstantiated claims’
Environmental experts disputed the new study’s assertion that it proved the existence of detectable levels of mifepristone in the U.S. water supply.
Jack Vanden Heuvel, a molecular toxicologist at Pennsylvania State University whose lab frequently examines pharmaceutical contamination in waterways, noted that while the report describes measuring the “mifepristone concentration” in water samples, the testing method described in the study actually measures a reaction in the water samples that could be caused either by the drug or equivalent chemicals that block the hormone progesterone.
A number of compounds besides mifepristone can do that, he said, including certain contraceptives and endocrine-distrupting chemicals, like BPA, which is found in many plastic products and some polychlorinated biphenyls, which were once used in electrical equipment. The study didn’t test for those other progesterone-blocking compounds, so it’s not clear whether they or mifepristone caused the detected activity.
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“What they did is a big ‘no-no,’” said Vanden Heuvel. “This would not have been published if I had been a peer reviewer.”
The study also does not describe using any analytical chemistry testing techniques that could specifically identify mifepristone in the water samples, said Betsy Southerland, a former career scientist who left EPA’s Office of Water during the first Trump administration after more than three decades at the agency.
It’s also unclear, she said, whether what the group detected could be harmful, despite the researchers making “unsubstantiated claims … that mifepristone poses a grave threat to ecological and human health.” The study cites another paper examining changes to uterine tissue prompted by patients undergoing long-term treatments involving low-doses of mifepristone.
The study’s author, Elise Rose, disputed these critiques in an interview.
The lab they contracted with in the Netherlands tested specifically for mifepristone, she said, and any other chemical detected would have to be genetically “identical or nearly identical” to the abortion medication, and “the odds against that would be very great.”
“This is a bio assay that’s based on enzymes and antibodies are like a lock and key,” said Rose, who holds a doctorate in agronomy and environmental plant physiology from Kansas State University. “In order for something else to fit in there, it has to be very similar. And mifepristone is not a simple molecule.”
She acknowledged, however, that some of what was detected “could be a metabolite of mifepristone that’s very close in structure” and that the group did not deploy any of the other analytical chemistry techniques Southerland says are necessary.
Vanden Heuvel and Southerland’s criticisms were echoed by other environmental health experts, including Kim Garrett, an environmental health scientist at City University of New York’s School of Public Health and Health Policy, who called the study’s methods “inappropriate and misrepresented.”
“The test used for analyses is not specific for mifepristone. Rather, it can pick up anything that interacts with progesterone receptors,” she wrote in an email.
Students for Life Executive Vice President Tina Whittington acknowledged that the paper “probably could have been worded better” to clarify that the tests conducted for the study were measuring “metabolites of mifepristone,” meaning traces of components of the drug, rather than the drug itself.
But she and Rose defended the paper’s conclusion.
“Everyone should be concerned that we are possibly being exposed to an endocrine-disrupting compound without our consent,” Rose said.
‘Turned a lot of heads’
Though the Trump administration has angered Students for Life and other anti-abortion groups with its inaction on abortion pills and other movement priorities, the new study lands in a ripe environment.
When President Donald Trump cautioned women late last year against taking Tylenol during their pregnancies — advice that runs counter to guidance from doctors — he cited a single study. Kennedy has also lifted up and changed policies based on research papers on vaccines, autism, anti-depressants, Covid-19 and other areas of health that break with the scientific consensus.
And when Brown’s colleagues at the Ethics and Public Policy Center published a report last year that claimed to show a far higher rate of medical complications among women who took mifepristone than previously known, conservatives in positions of power were quick to embrace its findings even as academic experts and fact checkers blasted its methodology.
Criticisms of that analysis — which didn’t undergo peer review and was released directly by the think tank rather than published in a medical journal — did not limit its political impact. It’s since been cited by Cabinet secretaries and lawmakers as cause for government action and held up as evidence in legal filings.
Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.), one of Congress’ leading abortion opponents whose wife, a conservative attorney, has argued multiple lawsuits that could restrict the pills’ use nationwide, told POLITICO the EPPC motivated many lawmakers who were previously noncommittal on the issue to support legislation or regulation to restrict abortion pills.
“I know that report opened a lot of eyes here and turned a lot of heads, especially among my Republican colleagues,” he said. “Some of them previously were kind of like, ‘Well, I don’t know.’ But when they heard about that data they’re like, ‘Whoa, that’s shocking.’ So I hope this new data will have a similar effect.”
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Texas "Clarified" Its Abortion Law. Then This Happened.
Politicians argue about abortion and women’s health care in the abstract.
Lynn Callaway didn’t have that luxury.
She miscarried at seven weeks and found herself caught in a Kafkaesque nightmare that stretched from three Texas emergency rooms to a hospital in Portugal months later.
Now she and her attorney, Molly Duane, have filed complaints asking state and federal regulators to investigate what happened and hold those involved accountable.
As a reminder: Texas doctors face enormous fines and up to 99 years in prison for violating the state’s abortion ban. The state legislature passed SB 31, which says doctors may provide abortion care in medical emergencies before the danger becomes imminent or irreversible. Lynn’s experience shows just how inadequate that law is.
I spoke with Lynn and Molly this week. Find their conversation above.
Also in today’s newsletter: Paramount’s Warner Bros deal hits the brakes. Obama offers advice; teenagers freak out. Trump’s new tariffs have a controversial legal theory. The lettuce situation isn’t over. RFK’s peptide push. The Pentagon’s casualty count doesn’t add up. And in News That Doesn’t Suck: Scientists think they’ve found a new way to clean the brain.
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Surgeon General suggests high measles counts could be tied to abortion opposition • Florida Phoenix
Florida Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo suggested Friday that opposition to abortion could have helped fuel a measles outbreak in Florida since many cases are tied to a private Roman Catholic college.
Federal data show Florida had 141 confirmed measles cases as of July 23, ranking the state fifth in the nation for most infections.
During a press conference in Orlando Friday, a reporter asked Ladapo about his level of concern about the measles cases and what he’d tell Florida families about the rising number of cases.
The surgeon general, long known for his vaccine skepticism, initially replied, “Oh no. Everyone’s got to take a vaccine.”
But he followed noting that “a lot of those cases” were reported at Ave Maria University, a private Roman Catholic college in Collier County. Ninety-three measles cases were reported in Collier County where the university is located.
“You know, for some people — people may or may not know that the measles vaccines is developed with the cells that are a progeny from … an aborted fetus, and you know whether there’s a connection between the fact that you know some of the students at this university chose not to receive that vaccine, and it happens to be a vaccine that is related to the practice of abortion, I’m not sure.”
The rubella component of the measles, mumps rubella (MMR) vaccine is made from two cell strains that came from human fetal lung tissue in the 1960s. Scientists used the tissues to grow the live measles virus safely. These same fetal cells have continued to grow in the laboratory and are used to make vaccines today. No further sources of fetal cells are needed to make these vaccines.
The Pontifical Academy for Life in 2017 issued updated moral considerations on vaccinations, telling Roman Catholic parents they should vaccinate their children for the good of the children and the community, and they can do so with a “clear conscience,” the Catholic Standard reported.
Ave Maria University did not immediately respond to Florida Phoenix’s requests for comment.
According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, measles spreads through the air when a sick person coughs or sneezes. The virus can stay in the air for two hours after the infected person leaves. It is so contagious that about nine out of 10 people who come near a person with measles will become infected if not vaccinated.
The best way to avoid measles is with the MMR vaccine. To stop the spread of the measles virus and for a population to be considered safe from infection, referred to as herd immunity, 95% of the population should be vaccinated.
According to the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, 89% of kindergarten students in the 2024-25 academic year had been vaccinated in Florida against measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine series.
Meanwhile, Toluwalasè A. Ajayi, M.D., chair of the Board of Trustees of the American Medical Association, urged families Friday to get vaccinated as the number of measles cases surge.
“The MMR vaccine has protected our communities for decades. There is no cure for measles, but vaccination is a safe and effective way to prevent it,” she said in a prepared statement.
“Choosing to vaccinate protects not only you and your family, but also babies, people with weakened immune systems, and others who can’t be vaccinated. Protecting yourself helps protect your entire community. If you have questions about measles, please talk with your doctor.”
Ladapo and his boss — Gov. Ron DeSantis — held a press conference last year calling on the Legislature to eliminate all vaccine mandates from Florida statutes.
DeSantis administration pushes to eliminate all vaccine mandates in Florida
A bill that would specifically have made it easier for parents to opt out mandated school vaccines was killed by the Florida House. DeSantis, who is term limited out of office, promised to keep the issue on the front burner during his last months in the Governor’s Mansion.
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Abortion returns to southwest Missouri after more than two decades without local access • Missouri Independent
It’s been nearly 21 years since Missourians living in Springfield could access abortion without driving at least a couple hours. That ended Monday.
The city’s Planned Parenthood clinic began offering medication abortion this week, ending a stretch that started in October 2005, when Springfield Healthcare Center closed after three decades in business and left southwest Missouri without an abortion provider.
The Springfield location is the fifth Planned Parenthood clinic to begin offering the medication after a June court decision struck down several abortion regulations as unconstitutional, opening the door to in-clinic medication abortion access again in Missouri for the first time since 2018. Medication abortion appointments at the clinic can be made up to 12 weeks into pregnancy.
“Everyone deserves to have access to abortion care close to home,” Dr. Margaret Baum, chief medical officer of Planned Parenthood Great Rivers, said in a statement. ” … Too many people struggle to get time off work or save up money to travel, and it impacts their ability to access timely care. That’s why it has been a top priority for (Planned Parenthood Great Rivers) to expand access in the Missouri Ozarks.”
Medication abortion is the most common method for ending pregnancy in the United States, used in about two-thirds of abortions. Federal challenges to the mifepristone, including efforts spearheaded by Missouri leaders, are ongoing.
Abortion has been legal in Missouri since November 2024, when voters approved a reproductive-rights amendment protecting abortion up to the point of fetal viability. This fall, voters will be asked if they want to reinstate an abortion ban after lawmakers voted to place a proposed constitutional amendment on the ballot that would ban the procedure with limited exceptions for survivors of rape and incest and for medical emergencies.
“This is this is very distressing news,” said Sam Lee, a longtime anti-abortion advocate and lobbyist. “Because of the passage of the amendment in 2024 and the ruling by Judge (Jerri) Zhang last month, it’s clear that Planned Parenthood is greatly expanding their abortion activity, and it wouldn’t surprise me if they start doing abortions at even more clinics in Missouri. This is why it’s absolutely essential that we pass Amendment 3 in November.”
Missouri Attorney General Catherine Hanaway has filed a notice of intent to appeal the June decision striking down dozens of state regulations on abortion providers — known as TRAP laws, or “targeted regulation of abortion providers” laws — as medically unnecessary. Planned Parenthood and the ACLU of Missouri also filed an intent to appeal the remaining upheld regulations.
Springfield Healthcare Center, a for-profit clinic that offered abortion services, closed Oct. 20, 2005, after about 30 years in business. The closure came weeks after then-Gov. Matt Blunt signed a special-session bill requiring abortion providers to hold admitting privileges at a hospital within 30 miles, though the administrator said the two were unrelated.
Expanded pain management options
The Springfield clinic this week also began offering nitrous oxide to help manage pain during the placement of intrauterine devices as well as for procedures such as biopsies, colposcopies, vasectomies and cancer screenings. This clinic does not currently perform procedural abortions.
Baum said the decision to add nitrous oxide was driven largely by provider and patient feedback at the Springfield office. The inhaled gas does not have long-term sedation effects, so patients are safe to drive themselves home immediately after the procedure.
When it came time for Ashley Mann, 41, of Springfield, to have her IUD replaced last spring, she kept replaying her experience 10 years prior at a clinic in her hometown.
Mann said she was advised to take ibuprofen prior to the appointment, but she wasn’t offered any other options. The extreme cramping started during the placement and continued for hours after.
“I was cramping and crying and in tears as I was driving home,” she said.
This time, hoping to keep her anxiety at bay, she was determined to find a provider with more pain management options.
A few months ago, Mann called the Planned Parenthood clinic in Springfield and was told they couldn’t provide what she was looking for. She also called Mercy Hospital Springfield and was told they could give her valium. As a self-pay patient, Mann said she was quoted $1,200 to have the procedure done at Planned Parenthood and $1,900 to have it done at the hospital.
Around the same time, she and her husband, who both work remotely, planned a trip to Amsterdam. Mann wondered if she could get a new IUD in the Netherlands instead.
In May, while on a working vacation, she paid 160 euros to get her new birth control placed. This included lidocaine spray followed by an injection to numb her cervix.
“If you know it’s gonna be painful and you have the ability to prevent some kind of suffering, like, why wouldn’t you want to do that?” she said.
Now, two months later, Mann’s local Planned Parenthood clinic in Springfield offers some of the relief she was seeking.
Each person’s experience with an IUD placement is different. Whether and how they experience discomfort or pain can depend on their genetics, medical and surgical history, and history of trauma.
A doctor holding T-shaped intrauterine birth control device (Getty Images). “There’s just a falsehood that there’s a dichotomy in terms of, ‘oh, it’s excruciating pain or it’s nothing,’” said Dr. Catherine Cansino, an OB-GYN and complex family planning specialist in California and a fellow of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists. “ When in reality, people experience pain very differently, and in the same way, the effects of an anesthetic can address their pain in varying ways.”
Cansino has placed countless IUDs. In the past few years, she’s increasingly heard from patients requesting pain relief. But expansion of options can be slow-going.
“Really it comes down to ‘how can we better address the pain that women experience, the discomfort that women experience?’” she said. “Don’t even get me started about the speculum, right? I mean, we just have very limited options.”
Last year, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists released new guidance for pain management options for in-office uterine and cervical procedures. The year prior, the CDC released similar advice.
“There is an urgent need for clinicians to better understand pain management options and recognize and address patient pain, and for patients to have more autonomy over pain control options for their health care,” the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists guidance reads.
In recent years, there’s been a growing chorus of women sharing their experiences on social media and asking providers for options to help navigate any pain they might experience.
Springfield patients still have fewer choices than those at Planned Parenthood’s clinic in St. Louis’ Central West End, about 200 miles northeast. When a judge’s initial order last year allowed Planned Parenthood clinics in Missouri to resume procedural abortions for the first time since 2022, it also opened the door for expanded pain management options for non-abortion care there.
Now staffed with a nurse trained in procedures involving anesthetics, the Central West End clinic began offering IV sedation for patients seeking other reproductive healthcare, such as the placement of IUDs.
Basic options — breathing techniques and ibuprofen — are available at most providers. In St. Louis, patients can also choose local anesthetic that requires an injection that numbs the cervix, oral prescription medication, or, now, IV sedation.
A patient can also be fully sedated in an operating room. It’s more rare, and more expensive, but Baum said the clinic can often help cover the expense when needed.
Missouri maternal deaths remain mostly preventable, sixth state report finds
The Planned Parenthood affiliate has offered IV sedation at its Fairview Heights clinic in Illinois, where abortion has long been legal, since 2024. Planned Parenthood Great Plains, which operates clinics in the Kansas City area and in Columbia, offers pain management options including lidocaine and Valium.
The most important part of this change, Baum said, is giving patients some choice over how the procedure plays out.
Baum said she once had a patient who needed a colposcopy, or an in-depth exam of the cervix. Afterward, the patient said she never wanted to get another exam because of how painful it was. Now Baum can call that patient back and offer the exam again, this time with sedation.
In Missouri, where she has worked as a doctor and abortion provider for decades, Baum said she thinks about the future of healthcare access for her patients “every day.”
“We are eager to expand, we are eager to provide all of the services to people,” she said. “We have to keep in mind resources. When we expand, we have to think ‘is this going to change again?’”
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7). “On the Frontlines of the Abortion War: Death Threats and Arsons”, Jan 29, 2023, Vice News, duration of video 9:20, at < https://www.youtube.com/watch?
v=zEazEkJdiOUb >.
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