Republicans' Lie that Abortion Pills are Poisoning the Water, Explained
The anti-abortion movement claims we're all "drinking abortions"
You know how I’ve been warning that conservatives are zeroing in on ‘disposal laws’ as part of their coming criminalization push? Well, here we are: House Republicans have introduced federal legislation that would outlaw flushing fetal remains.
Under the “Respectful Treatment of Unborn Remains Act,” abortion providers who dispose of fetal remains “in publicly owned water systems” could go to prison for up to five years. The bill is just the latest in a growing anti-abortion strategy: claiming that abortion medication and aborted fetuses are poisoning the country’s water supply.
Just a few weeks ago, Abortion, Every Day reported that twenty-five Republican lawmakers had written a letter to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), demanding that the agency test the nation’s water supply for abortion medication. The legislators told EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin that mifepristone should be regulated under the Safe Drinking Water Act, claiming—without evidence—that abortion pills could be responsible for “our nation’s rising infertility rates.”
This made-for-MAHA tactic has been steadily gaining steam over the last year, with extremist group Students for Life leading the charge: the organization insists that abortion pills are harming the environment, killing the wildlife, and poisoning the country’s drinking water. More than that, they say that because women who have medication abortions flush embryonic or fetal remains, “we are drinking other people’s abortions.”
I know this is easy to make fun of. (Like, really easy.) But we have to take this strategy more seriously—if for no other reason than anti-abortion activists and legislators are clearly putting a whole lot of effort into it.
So let’s take a closer look at that federal legislation—HR 4131. Bill sponsor Rep. Brandon Gill says the bill is meant to “restore dignity” to fetal remains and stop the contamination of water sources. But in the most obvious tell that this has nothing to do with protecting the environment or respecting fetal remains, the law would only apply to ‘elective’ abortions. (We’ve seen this move before on the state level.)
Here’s the thing: while the legislation tries to define abortion as something done with ‘intent’, it doesn’t really make clear how doctors are meant to distinguish fetal remains that are okay to flush, and fetal remains that could land them in prison for five years.
For example, the bill says that it’s fine to flush completed miscarriages where the fetal ‘heartbeat’ has stopped—but what about life-saving abortions where the ‘heartbeat’ is still present? Is that considered elective? And if this is really about respecting fetal remains, why do miscarried fetuses deserve less ‘respect’?
HR 4131 would also (supposedly) only apply to abortion providers—excluding patients from criminalization. But who is the provider when a woman takes abortion pills by herself at home? If it’s the person who prescribed the pills, does that mean doctors will need to force women to bag up their blood and bring it back to the office for disposal in order not to be prosecuted?
That’s certainly the nightmare scenario Students for Life has been pushing for—and they’re one of the groups supporting the legislation.
I wish I was done, sorry: In addition to the EPA letter, numerous state-level bills, and now this federal legislation—another anti-abortion organization has just joined the fetuses-in-the-water fray. The ultra-conservative Liberty Counsel Action (LAC) has launched a new white paper and full-blown ‘Abortion in Our Water’ campaign. Here’s what you’re greeted with when you go to their website:
LAC, which the Southern Poverty Law Center has designated as a hate group, also has resources on their site like a powerpoint presentation and ‘rebuttals to common arguments’. (Let’s just say they didn’t put their best intern on that one.)
John Stemberger, president of LAC, says that we’re in the middle of “an unfolding environmental and public health crisis.”
“The same water that Americans use to drink, cook, and bathe in may contain residuals from powerful, lethal abortion drugs. No one voted for this, and if folks were aware, there would be public outcry. We are all living with these consequences.”
What are those ‘consequences’? Well, like Students for Life, the group is trying to appeal to the MAHA/RFK Jr. crowd by claiming that abortion pills and fetal remains in the water are causing infertility. Both organizations also feign concern for the environment, citing Donald Trump’s promise for “crystal-clean water”—knowing that environmental issues poll well with younger voters.
Even Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America is getting in on the action. Arguably the nation’s most powerful anti-abortion group, the organization likes to stay quiet on the movement’s most wacky tactics—so they haven’t weighed in publicly on ‘abortion in the water’. But they are one of the groups supporting HR 4131.
In other words: as batshit as this argument is, the nation’s most powerful anti-abortion and conservative organizations are putting a whole lot of effort into it. They wouldn’t do that if they didn’t think it could get them somewhere.
Here’s my take: In addition to having an opportunity with the conspiracy theory fertility crew at the Department of Health and Human Services, the idea that abortion pills poison the groundwater kills quite a lot of birds with one very crazy stone:
It’s a terrific argument for groups that don’t want to support IVF—people don’t need fertility treatments, they just need less abortions in their morning coffee!
If successful with these claims about abortion pills, conservatives can easily make the same bullshit argument about contraception and hormones associated with gender-affirming care. In fact, they’ve already done that in Texas, the anti-abortion movement’s favorite testing ground.
Finally, this strategy allows them to get back to their favorite past time: shaming women who have abortions. Conservatives hate that patients can end their pregnancies in the comfort of their own homes, without going through a gauntlet of protesters calling them sluts and whores. By mandating that women bag up their blood and bring it back to the doctor, anti-abortion groups are exerting the control and humiliation they’re so fond of.
My guess is that this federal bill is Republicans’ attempt to test the waters (so to speak!) to see just how much pushback they get. That’s why they’re slow-rolling it—pretending that it won’t impact patients, just providers, and that it will only count for abortions, not miscarriages.
That means we need to make very clear that we absolutely see what they’re doing and won’t stand for it. Please spread the word, make some noise—and check to see if there are any similar state-level bills where you live!
Republicans think they’re going to be able to get away with pulling some of the most outrageous shit possible while we’re overwhelmed and exhausted. Let’s make sure that doesn’t happen.
Because their message is not strong enough to stand on its own, they have to start co-opting and latching on to other movements. So far they’ve co-opted the environmental movement, the racial justice movement (“black pre-born lives matter”), and the disability rights movement (all their rhetoric about “disabled children”). And that’s just what I can come up with off the top of my head. Is anyone else so fucking sick of this? They’re just throwing shit at the wall to see what sticks.
This is outright harassment. And sickening.