Anti-abortion activists, attorneys general, and lawmakers have been lobbying for the agency to carry the study for years

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced it is launching a drinking water quality study to look for traces of abortion pills mifepristone and misoprostol for the first time.

Anti-abortion activists, attorneys general, and lawmakers have been lobbying for the agency to carry the study for years.

Researchers at the agency will collect water samples “from several locations in different metropolitan areas” and test them for thousands of drugs, pesticides and synthetic chemicals, including mifepristone, misoprostol, and multiple types of “forever chemicals,” according to a description of the study.

  • Maeve@kbin.earth
    3·
    17 hours ago

    “I think what’s concerning here is that there’s already a culture of criminalization around abortion, especially since Dobbs [v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization], and the potential to use this as justification for further surveillance could create more fear for abortion seekers, for providers at a time when folks are already being criminalized and for their pregnancy outcomes, including abortion,” Anna Bernstein, principal federal policy adviser for the Guttmacher Institute, told The Hill.

    Nathan Donley, the environmental health science director at the Center for Biological Diversity, told the outlet mifepristone is not one of the known contaminants on the EPA’s list to regulate.