this post was submitted on 22 Sep 2026
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United States | News & Politics

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EPA to begin screening U.S. drinking water for traces of abortion pills (www.themirror.com)
submitted 1 month ago by velma@sh.itjust.works to c/usa@lemmy.ml
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The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced it is launching a drinking water quality study to look for traces of abortion pills mifepristone and misoprostol for the first time.

Anti-abortion activists, attorneys general, and lawmakers have been lobbying for the agency to carry the study for years.

Researchers at the agency will collect water samples “from several locations in different metropolitan areas” and test them for thousands of drugs, pesticides and synthetic chemicals, including mifepristone, misoprostol, and multiple types of "forever chemicals," according to a description of the study.

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[–] moldy_rice@piefed.keyboardvagabond.com 1 points 1 month ago (2 children)

It has alleged that as women increasingly use the abortion pills at home to terminate pregnancies, flushing the expelled tissue, traces of the pill make their way to water supply, contaminating it. 

That's fucked, if true.

One, don't flush any drugs. Take it to a pharmacy and ask them to dispose of it properly.

Two, anything flushed should end up in a wastewater treatment facility. If the waste water is somehow contaminating your drinking water, that sounds like a clean water act violation, and the government should be investigated and fined repeatedly until this is fixed.

[–] dubs@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 points 1 month ago

Take it to a pharmacy and ask them to dispose of it properly.

Many people are (rightly) scared of doing this. It's more discreet to flush than it is to get rid of it in a public place.

[–] conquer4@lemmy.world 3 points 1 month ago
  1. A waste water treatment facility has extreme limitations on what it can clean, and literally just gets it to the won't-kill-the-environment level. Hormones, viruses, etc are too small to effectively process on a massive scale. New York for example, still sometimes releases raw sewage because they can't keep up.
  2. Trump and the Supreme Court have basically gutted the clean water act. If it's not navigable, the law doesn't apply to it.