Do Our Water Systems Contain Fetal Tissue and Chemicals from Abortion Pills?

The Christian, pro-life organization Liberty Counsel Action has distributed a report that raises the disturbing question of whether U.S. water systems contain traces of drugs used in chemical abortions as well as human tissue from terminated fetuses.

Here’s the issue as I understand it. After surgical abortions, the remains are incinerated. But, as of 2023, some 63 percent of abortions have occurred at home (chemical abortions), with the result that hundreds of thousands of deceased fetuses have been flushed down the toilet over the years. Moreover, the active chemicals in abortion pills also enter our sewage systems.

This is the potential rub. Our water treatment plants are not equipped to properly process human tissue nor necessarily to remove metabolized mifepristone (metabolites) used in the abortion pills — meaning that the compound could end up in our tap supply. From, “Abortion in Our Water: A Special Report” (the quotes are from the EPA’s “Primer for Municipal Wastewater Treatment System”):

After being excreted (prior to entering the environment), pharmaceutical contaminants become part of wastewater. In households connected to public sewer systems, this water then enters Publicly Owned Treatment Works (POTW, also referred to as wastewater treatment plants). However, traditional wastewater treatment facilities “are not designed to remove pharmaceuticals” (emphasis added). Indeed, while some wastewater treatment facilities “may remove some pharmaceuticals incidentally,” many others “pass through and enter the environment.”

This has become a major environmental concern, as there is a wide range of evidence demonstrating that the pharmaceutical contaminants entering our water supply via wastewater effluent are adversely affecting various forms of wildlife…Related, wastewater treatment plants are not intended to process fetal remains (medical waste facilities exist for this purpose), though they end up serving in this capacity as fetal remains from chemical abortions are often flushed into the sewer system.

The report indicates that environmental regulations do not require that all organic matter be removed by water treatment processes. “By implication, approximately 10 percent of the organic matter in wastewater, which may include fetal biomass,…is not removed (consider, for example, microscopic fragments of skin or other organic fetal remains).”

Among many other proposals, the report suggests the following steps, which seem commonsensical to me:

• Hold a series of congressional hearings.
• Introduce legislation to require updated comprehensive “gold standard” (objectively peer-reviewed) research on the possible adverse effects of mifepristone and fetal remains in our water supply and drinking water.

Is this much ado about very little, or a potential source of harm? I have no idea. But if microplastic contamination is deemed a worthy issue for environmental investigation, it seems to me that this issue is too. As the study indicates, over the years, tons of human fetal remains — and an untold amount of mifepristone metabolites — have been discarded into our sewage systems, with some of that waste, perhaps, entering our water sources.

As one would expect, the report discusses the moral and ethical issues of chemical abortions at length from a pro-life perspective, but I won’t get into that here. Regardless of one’s views on abortion, the question of whether current abortion pill practices can result in water contamination is an issue well worth a dispassionate investigation.

If you want to download the whole report, hit this link.