In a press release issued on Monday, Liberty Counsel announced that 14 Republican state attorneys general have sent a letter (full text of letter dated June 5) to the Food and Drug Admninistation urging it to investigate whether the abortion drug mifepristone is contaminating drinking water. The letter said in part:
The upsurge in home-setting chemical abortions has serious implications for the Safe Drinking Water Act. The metabolites in mifepristone and its approved generics remain active post-excretion... On top of this, conventional wastewater treatment is not designed to remove these type of contaminants, so there is strong reason to conclude that the compounds persist in both the environment and the water supply.....
We therefore urge this agency to abide by its duty to identify the contaminants most harmful to “sensitive subgroups,” including “pregnant women,” 42 U.S.C. § 300g–1(b)(1)(C), and amend the 6th CCL to include mifepristone and its approved generics. The health of pregnant women and Americans everywhere may depend on it.
According to the press release announcing the letter:
The coalition of attorneys general ... urge the EPA to add Mifepristone to the Contaminant Candidate List (CCL). The CCL is a regulatory tool under the Safe Drinking Water Act that identifies contaminants that are not yet subject to any water protection regulations. Once a substance is on the CCL, it triggers federal safety studies on its health effects whereby the EPA must then decide how to regulate the substance.