Congressional pressure is growing on the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to investigate potential health threats posed by the growing presence in municipal wastewater systems of chemically tainted fetal tissue resulting from home use of the abortion drug mifepristone.

Senior agency officials are in talks with congressional Republicans who have been pushing for such a probe for several years, The Washington Stand is told by knowledgeable Capitol Hill sources who requested anonymity to avoid throwing a wrench in the negotiations. A significant obstacle to progress on the issue appears to be a lack of interest within the EPA career workforce in doing such a review.

Those talks are the first sign in months that the EPA may be preparing to undertake a study or review that pro-life advocates believe is badly needed. In October 2025, The New York Times reported that senior agency officials asked EPA scientists about detecting mifepristone in water. The scientists replied that EPA did not then have such detection capabilities.

“It is not clear what became of the E.P.A. scientists’ review, though there is no sign that any methods are under development for detecting mifepristone in wastewater,” the Times reported. An EPA spokesman could not be reached for comment.

The pressure on EPA is growing because a majority of the nation’s estimated one million abortions every year are carried out by women using the drug in their homes. Mifepristone was approved by the FDA in 2000, based in part on a recommendation from the Population Council that claimed the environmental impact would be minimal.

But then came the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization Supreme Court decision in 2022 that nullified the 1972 Roe v. Wade decision that legalized abortion nationwide. Under Dobbs, each of the nation’s 50 states must decide how its law will deal with abortion. Roughly half of the states significantly tightened their laws, while the others kept abortion widely available.

The result was a spiraling in abortions through mifepristone use, with a result that 60% or more of all abortions involve the drug.

“This increase has not only led to further harm for women, who are often directed to flush their babies remains and then are traumatized by ‘seeing their fully formed babies in a glob of blood floating in the toilet,’ but has also increased the level of abortion pill contaminants and the amount of fetal remains entering our water systems,” according to a 2025 special report by Liberty Counsel Action (LCA).

Mifepristone is known to form active metabolites, which may retain at least some of the drug’s therapeutic effects even after entering municipal water systems. That drugs do enter into the water system has been known for a long time, as seen in a 2008 NPR report cited by LCA.

“What we do know, however, is a cause for concern: Mifepristone acts as an endocrine disruptor by blocking progesterone, a vital fertility hormone. Relatedly, infertility rates are on the rise and now affect one in six individuals. While there is a clear correlation between the increase in chemical abortions and an increased rate of infertility, further study is sorely needed to establish whether there is causation,” the LCA report claimed.

Estimates range as high as 40 tons of chemically tainted fetal tissue, placenta, and blood that are flushed into the nation’s water systems annually, but there is no definitive estimate based on systematic and comprehensive investigations by trusted authorities. Such an authoritative review is what 24 congressional GOPers encouraged EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin to initiate in a June 2025 letter.

The signers included Senator James Lankford and Rep. Josh Brecheen of Oklahoma, as well as Senators Cynthia Lummis of Wyoming, David Moreno of Ohio and Jim Banks of Indiana, plus Representatives Andy Harris of Maryland, Robert Aderholt of Alabama, Kat Cammack of Florida, Chip Roy of Texas, Diana Harshbarger of Tennessee, Andy Biggs of Arizona, Brandon Gill of Texas, Richard Hudson of North Carolina, Michael Cloud of Texas, Paul Gosar of Arizona, Michael Guest of Mississippi, Andrew Clyde of Georgia, Eli Crane of Arizona, Ben Cline of Virginia, Mary Miller of Illinois, Mark Harris of North Carolina, Barry Moore of Alabama, Riley Moore of West Virginia, Sheri Biggs of South Carolina, and Eric Burlison of Missouri.

The two Oklahoma lawmakers are leading the charge for the EPA review.

“Federal regulators are rightfully eager to study the health effects of many chemicals in our water and septic systems, but they haven’t examined the environmental and public health risks of chemical abortion drugs like mifepristone in those same systems,” Lankford said in a statement. “Scientific research on the health effects of water sources where there are trace amounts of a chemical that is designed to end the life of a child in the womb should not be controversial.”

“Abortion is one of the defining evils of our time,” Brecheen said in the same statement. “The Biden-Harris administration worked tirelessly to promote this evil, repeatedly lying about the ‘safety’ of the abortion pill and ignoring legitimate concerns about mifepristone’s widespread availability. We recognize that the greatest tragedy of every abortion is the murder of the innocent. But we are also concerned that activist bureaucrats overlooked real public health risks posed by mifepristone in their crusade to expand abortion access. With chemical abortion now the most common abortion method in America, the public deserves answers about how these potent hormone disruptors affect our water supply and contribute to our nation’s rising infertility rates.”