The battle over abortion has reached the fight over our water supply.
Note to my future self. Abortion opponents have opened a new front in their campaign against the abortion pill: clean water.
For more than a year, anti-abortion groups have been pressing the Environmental Protection Agency to investigate mifepristone, one of the two drugs commonly used in medication abortions, as a possible drinking-water contaminant.
Their argument is that traces of the drug could survive wastewater treatment and expose people and wildlife to a hormone-blocking chemical, potentially affecting reproduction and fertility. There is no established evidence that mifepristone in drinking water is causing those effects in people.
Still, the campaign has gained traction.
Republican state attorneys general joined it. Members of Congress asked EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin to put mifepristone into the federal process for evaluating potential drinking-water contaminants. There is proposed legislation called the Clean Water for All Life Act.
And this month, EPA launched a national study screening drinking water for more than 1,400 chemicals. Among them is 22-OH-mifepristone, a substance produced when the body breaks down the abortion drug.
EPA has not said the political campaign put it there. The study is broad, and scientists routinely study pharmaceuticals that enter wastewater and drinking-water sources.
But abortion opponents have made their objective clear: establish mifepristone as an environmental contaminant, opening another potential route for government action against the drug.
The battle over abortion has reached the fight over our water supply.
Notes To My Future Self 