EPA should track chemicals in the medical waste of abortion to ensure America’s waterways are safe
Students for Life of America President Kristan Hawkins details protest at Virginia Commonwealth University
Antifa activists and pro-choice students shouted down the pro-life speakers so they were unable to give their presentation, ultimately forcing them to leave the room
Most Americans have been bombarded with messages about protecting our environment from our earliest days in school, from Woodsy the Owl to Smokey the Bear. The Biden administration and their Democratic counterparts across the nation are trying to implement an environmental mandate on steroids, from limiting gas stoves, eliminating gas-powered cars, to canceling pizza ovens in New York City.
Yet one industry operates with a de facto government sanction to knowingly pollute – the chemical abortion pill conglomerate.
Neither hospitals nor brick-and-mortar abortion vendors may legally flush medical waste into our wastewater. Failure to handle medical waste properly can be prosecuted. But by expanding abortion-by-mail into dorms, apartments and homes across America, Biden’s FDA allows that to occur as mothers having an abortion are encouraged to sit on their toilets and flush the "pregnancy tissue" i.e. chemically tainted blood, placenta tissue and their deceased child down the drain.
A cabinet containing Mifepristone in Wellspring Health Access clinic in Casper, Wyoming, on June 8, 2023. (Rachel Woolf for The Washington Post via Getty Images)
In a series of citizen petitions to the FDA, as well as in an amicus brief, Students for Life Action (SFLAction) has highlighted that potential hazard, calling on Biden’s FDA and now the EPA to do their jobs of protecting the environment from the perhaps unintended consequences of abortions-by-mail. It’s a concern shared by many.
In a letter to Congress, a coalition of 40 pro-life leaders signed onto a letter drafted by SFLAction and Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America asking legislators to demand the EPA track the "forever chemicals" in the deadly pills.
The letter notes: "The safety of America’s drinking water demands that deliberate pollution be addressed, and pollutants tracked to the best of our nation’s ability. Recently, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has begun monitoring a list of ‘forever chemicals’ – substances that linger in America’s drinking water and are determined to pose a risk to those exposed the them,
"In a recent letter sent to the EPA, Students for Life of America explained, ‘In recent years, and largely in 2023, the EPA has increased its efforts to regulate per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (‘PFAS’)… In implementing these new initiatives, the EPA has shown a commitment to monitoring and controlling the effect that a constant stream of chemicals and harmful substances – no matter how small those substances may be – may have on the environment.’"
A DOCTOR GAVE ME PILLS FOR A NIGHTMARISH ABORTION. THE FDA BETRAYED WOMEN BY LETTING THAT HAPPEN
Chemical abortion pills are now estimated to be used to commit more than half of all abortions, the remains of which are creating potential environmental harms, as NIH-published studies from other nations report. Potential harms to endangered species are the subject of SFLA’s amicus brief now before the Supreme Court in a challenge to FDA approval of abortion pills.
However, the scale of the contamination is not fully known.
Again from the letter: "As there is no mandatory national abortion data collected by the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) nor is there consistent data regarding adverse outcomes by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the full scope of mifepristone use is poorly tracked. As such, data on the scope of any environmental hazard is also limited.
"However, the scope of potential environmental contamination is likely on the rise, when considering that three-quarters of abortions in Europe are committed with Mifepristone pills, according to the New York Times. Elsewhere the percentage is even higher, as an NIH report notes that countries like Finland use Mifepristone pills 97.7% of the time, and in Sweden, the pills are used more than 96.4% of the time."
Mishandling human remains and medical waste can lead to severe consequences.
The World Health Organization notes: "The disposal of untreated health care wastes in landfills can lead to the contamination of drinking, surface, and ground waters if those landfills are not properly constructed." The American Academy of Family Physicians, in discussing medical waste disposal in non-medical locations, writes: "Inappropriate medical waste disposal can pose harmful environmental concerns and significant health risks to the public."
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The potential public health hazard of tainted water will certainly impact some people more than others. Some states are considering protecting the environment, while others have embraced the business of abortion, such as Michigan and Illinois, that border the Great Lakes, which contain about one-fifth of the world’s fresh surface water supply and nine-tenths of the U.S. supply.
Consider water-starved California, which Gov. Gavin Newsom intends to make "an abortion sanctuary," and where officials are planning to recycle toilet water into drinking water.
The Democratic Party’s bias in favor of abortion should not lead to tainted water. President Biden’s chemical abortion policies have created cemeteries in our sewers that requires a public health response.
At the very least, the EPA should track the "forever chemicals" in the medical waste of abortion to determine whether America’s waterways are safe for aquatic, animal and plant life and the people relying on them.
Give a hoot, President Biden, and don’t pollute.
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Kristi Hamrick is vice president of Media & Policy for SFLA/SFLAction. Follow @KristiSHamrick.
Kristan Hawkins is president of Students for Life of America and Students for Life Action, with more than 1,400 groups on middle and high school, college and university, medical and law school campuses in all 50 states. Follow her @KristanHawkins or subscribe to her podcast, Explicitly Pro-Life.
