As chemical abortions facilitated by the drug mifepristone continue to surge, a growing chorus of medical professionals and public officials is warning that the drugs residues, excreted during the abortion process, may be contaminating Americas water supply and further depressing an already historically low birth rate.
According to Western Journal, the alarm is sounding against the backdrop of a startling global trend: a major study released last year reported that worldwide infertility has climbed by 84 percent between 1990 and 2021. The same report found that in 2021 alone, more than 110 million women were affected by infertility, with roughly one in 10 women of reproductive age unable to conceive.
This dramatic rise in infertility coincides with the global rollout of the abortion pill, first introduced in parts of Europe in the late 1980s and early 1990s and approved in the United States in 2000. While correlation does not prove causation, the timing has prompted serious questions among pro-life advocates and some medical experts about the long-term, population-level effects of widespread chemical abortion.
Those questions have only intensified since the Supreme Courts 2022 Dobbs decision overturned Roe v. Wade and returned abortion policy to the states. In the wake of that ruling, use of mifepristone has skyrocketed, with distribution expanding to all 50 states under a regulatory regime critics describe as dangerously lax.
The result is that nearly two-thirds of all abortions in the United States are now performed using the abortion pill rather than surgical procedures. That shift means far more of the drug is being taken at home, flushed into wastewater systems, and potentially entering rivers, lakes, and ultimately drinking water.
Despite this massive increase in usage, experts and state officials note that there have been no new comprehensive federal studies in almost 30 years on how mifepristone affects the nations water supply. Earlier this month, 14 Republican state attorneys general sent a formal letter to the Environmental Protection Agency urging the agency to begin testing drinking water for contaminants linked to mifepristone and hormonal birth control.
State lawmakers are joining that call, arguing that the federal government is failing in its basic duty to safeguard public health. Kansas state Rep. Ron Bryce, a Republican and practicing physician, has emerged as one of the most outspoken voices demanding action.
The EPA relied on studies that were done in 1996, which is 30 years ago, 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, Bryce said during an appearance on Washington Watch with Tony Perkins on Monday. Since then, that data has become obsolete because now we have 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.
Bryce stressed that the lack of updated research is especially troubling given the nations plunging fertility rate and the broader demographic crisis facing Western societies. He argued that a serious, science-based inquiry into the environmental impact of abortion drugs is long overdue.
[T]he childbirth rate has dropped dramatically in the U.S. and in other Western countries, he noted. In about the year 2000, it was something like 70 births per 1,000 women. Now its down to 53. [P]eople are not having babies like they used to. Part of that may be due to the abortion pill in the water. Thats more or less a theory. [T]heres no raw scientific data we can rely on, so we really need the EPA to do their job and have some scientific data on it.
The EPA has already released testing results for 374 different pharmaceuticals in drinking water, a fact that has only deepened suspicion among critics about why mifepristone has been left out. For many conservatives, the omission looks less like an oversight and more like a politically motivated decision to shield the abortion industry from scrutiny.
Bryce suggested that entrenched bureaucrats inside the agency may be deliberately blocking efforts to examine the drugs environmental footprint. He described a pattern in which ideological agendas override neutral scientific inquiry.
[T]here are also people in the bureaucracies, people at the agencies, people that carry out these things that are constantly putting up roadblocks, he insisted. And so my impression is theres been a push from a large contingency of powerful people who dont want this study done. They dont want to know the answer. They want it to be in question because they have an agenda. [I]n the legislature, Ive noticed that sometimes one side will be arguing an opinion, other side will be arguing an opinion we dont stop and just look at what the facts are. [T]his is one of those times where we really [should] look at the facts.
As vice chairman of the Committee on Health and Human Services in the Kansas House of Representatives, Bryce has access to a steady stream of medical and scientific information. He pointed to existing research on animals that, while limited, should raise red flags for any responsible regulator.
[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 explained. And so were looking at fertility rates that are very low in the United States and in the Western civilization. The genetics have not changed. The genetic pool is the same as it has been for generations. Its either environmental factors or its behavioral factors. Its probably a combination of the two. But its an existential crisis the birth rate and the fertility rate that were looking at. We really need to get to the bottom of the environmental factors that might be contributing to this, and its just obvious that we need to look at the levels of mifepristone in our water.
For conservatives who have long warned about the cultural and economic consequences of collapsing birth rates, the possibility that taxpayer-funded regulators are ignoring a potential environmental driver of infertility is deeply troubling. The pro-life movement has traditionally focused on the moral and legal dimensions of abortion, but the mifepristone debate is now expanding that concern to include long-term public health and demographic stability.
If a widely used abortion drug is indeed seeping into the water supply and affecting fertility, the implications would extend far beyond partisan politics or the usual left-right skirmishes over choice. At stake is whether a nation already struggling to replace its population will allow ideological commitments to abortion on demand to trump basic scientific investigation and the duty of government to protect future generations.
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