Flushed away

In Wisconsin, a disagreement among Republican lawmakers is highlighting a regulatory push among pro-life leaders over a surprising topic: municipal wastewater.

Earlier this month, a coalition of Republican legislators in Madison introduced a bill that would hold abortion drug manufacturers responsible for the proper disposal of abortion pills and the remains of aborted babies. One controversial portion of the bill would require abortionists who prescribe abortion pills to also give women a “catch kit” and medical waste disposal bag. Last week, the bill’s sponsors clashed over whether to cut that provision.

Overall, the bill’s goal is to prevent abortion pills—and blood, tissue, and human remains that have been exposed to abortion drugs—from being flushed down a toilet and entering the water system. It’s one of several similar wastewater-focused bills that pro-life leaders are promoting across the United States.

As chemical abortions have become the most common form of abortion in the country, many pro-life advocates argue research has not kept pace with the rapidly rising rate of mifepristone use. They say that at the very least, federal authorities should determine if abortion drugs are contaminating the country’s water. Other pro-life advocates say the proposed legislation could open mothers’ eyes to the reality of their decision and pave the way for discussions about the sanctity of life.

“Take the word ‘abortion’ out of it, and ask, should chemically tainted blood and placenta tissue, along with human remains, be flushed by the tons into America’s waterways?” Kristan Hawkins, president of the pro-life group Students for Life Action, wrote in a recent statement.

Abortion groups often tell women who take the abortion pill to either flush the remains of their child down the toilet or dispose of them in the trash. Chemical abortions now account for more than 60% of all abortions in the United States, and at least 14% involve pills obtained from online-based abortionists, according to the pro-abortion Guttmacher Institute. The group says that more than 1 million babies died in abortions in 2024, though it acknowledges the real number is higher. By these figures, at least 600,000 babies died from chemical abortions—a much higher number than less than a decade ago.

In previous legislative sessions, lawmakers in Maine, West Virginia, and Wyoming introduced similar clean water bills, though none advanced. Students for Life Action helped craft Wisconsin’s bill, dubbed the Clean Water for All Life Act. “It should have been enough that the pills killed children, and it should have been enough that the pills killed their mothers, and it wasn’t,” said Kristi Hamrick, SFLA vice president of media and policy. “But the fact that this also kills, potentially, the environment and creates a pollution cycle that can impact people who depend on clean water, this could be the thing that is the ultimate pivot.”

Wisconsin state Rep. Nate Gustafson, a sponsor of the newly introduced wastewater bill, on Tuesday proposed an amendment to axe the section that required women to return the medical waste bag to a medical professional for disposal and receive a physical check-up to determine if she was experiencing any complications from the abortion. He also wants to cut a provision requiring abortionists to see a woman in person before prescribing abortion drugs and schedule a follow-up visit with her after the abortion. Gustafson did not return my request for comment on his proposed changes.

On Thursday, bill author Rep. Lindee Brill said in a news release that she backs the original bill text and believes it does not need to be changed. According to Brill, the original wording is still the official version of the bill.

Last week, SFLA called on Americans to wade into the battle to keep abortion drugs out of water systems. The Environmental Protection Agency plans to accept public comment on the agency’s list of contaminants it tracks, SFLA said, urging pro-lifers to contact politicians about the issue.

“We are asking people across the country to demand that the active metabolites of Mifepristone, or any generic drug, which are the first of the two-drug protocol used to kill preborn babies, be tracked as dangerous forever chemicals,” Hawkins wrote in the statement. Forever chemicals are a group of man-made chemicals that do not easily break down in the environment or the human body.

Every few years, the EPA accepts nominations of chemicals, microbes, or other substances to be considered for the list. It most recently took suggestions in 2023. The nominated contaminants are not automatically subject to regulation, but the EPA conducts further investigation into at least five of them to determine whether they should be monitored and controlled under the federal Safe Drinking Water Act. The agency currently limits around 90 contaminants in drinking water including heavy metals, industrial chemicals, herbicides, and disinfectants. It does not directly regulate any pharmaceuticals, though it does monitor some as emerging concerns.

Abortion supporters argue there is no evidence that abortion drug residue in water is harming people and animals. In 1996, the Population Council submitted an environmental assessment to the Food and Drug Administration that found the effects of mifepristone would likely be minimal. But pro-life groups argue that the manner and frequency in which the drug is administered has changed dramatically since then, prompting the need for a new federal study.

“When a pharmaceutical begins being used at a significantly greater scale and through a new disposal pathway (in this case, public wastewater systems) it is reasonable and responsible to reevaluate the risks,” CEO of the American Conservation Coalition Danielle Franz told me in an email.

Pro-life groups point to studies from outside the United States that suggest water treatment facilities do not always remove endocrine disruptors or metabolites from abortion drugs. SFLA and Liberty Counsel Action published reports this summer claiming somewhere between 30 to more than 50 tons of placenta and human remains are flushed into the water system each year due to abortions.

Pro-abortion groups argue that laws currently do not require women or doctors to collect and properly dispose of the remains of babies who die by miscarriage. The proposed law in Wisconsin also does not apply to miscarriages.

But medical centers do require patients to return unused drugs for proper disposal because of their potentially dangerous effect on the environment, noted Dr. Brick Lantz, vice president of bioethics and public policy at the Christian Medical and Dental Associations. Supporters of the wastewater bills argue that babies who die by chemical abortion are exposed to the dangerous drugs, while not all miscarriages require the use of mifepristone. And some women and couples who lose a baby to miscarriage choose to bury their child instead.

Other, related bills aim to recognize the humanity of an unborn child by preventing the baby from being discarded as waste. In June, Rep. Brandon Gill, R-Texas, and Sen. Jim Banks, R-Ind., introduced the Respectful Treatment of Unborn Remains Act that would bar abortionists from disposing of aborted babies in public water systems.

While critics claim it is harsh or invasive to require a woman to collect the body of her unborn baby, Lantz argues that could clarify the true loss that abortion creates. “When a woman sees her unborn [baby]—and they do see it often in the toilet before they flush it—but when they see it in the strainer, that’s going to create some graphic images,” he said.

During the last week of former President Joe Biden’s administration, the FDA rejected a citizen petition from SFLA asking the agency to reinstate safety regulations for the drug while the government studies its effects. In June, 25 Republican members of Congress asked EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin to review whether the abortion drug contaminates the water supply. According to The New York Times, senior officials this summer directed scientists to consider the request, though the agency has not officially commented on its review.

Hamrick told me that Students for Life has conducted its own peer-reviewed water testing and hopes to publish the findings soon. “You don’t have to be pro-life to not want to drink other people’s abortions,” she said.