WorldNetDaily writer Bob Unruh’s rage at the abortion pill mifepristone continued to spreading rumors about the drug being found in drinking water. He huffed in a June 13 article:
Citing the health threats that exist because of chemicals in water supplies, including in groundwater resources, the attorney general for Indiana is calling on the Environmental Protection Agency to impose stricter controls over the abortion-inducing drug mifepristone.
According to a report from the office of AG Todd Rokia, “Drug-induced abortions occurring outside of the legal, direct and personal care of a properly licensed physician are causing pain and suffering to women. Obviously, this starts with the individuals persuaded by Planned Parenthood and Big Pharma to use mifepristone to abort their pregnancies, but increasingly it extends to other women who might ingest the drug from their local water supplies.”
Actually, Rokita is working with officials from 14 states who have gone to the EPA with their demands.
Actually, it’s well-known that drugs used by populations can find their way into groundwater supplies.
The drugs pass through people, then enter sewage systems, and eventually can be found in various water supply sources. Online reports confirm that in Los Angeles County, prescription drugs including Viagra have been found in drinking water systems.
Unruh followed up in a June 30 article:
The abortion drug Mifepristone, that chemical often mailed to women to kill their unborn children, should be listed among the Environmental Protection Agency’s water pollutants, as a “drinking water contaminant,” according to a new campaign.
It is Liberty Counsel Action that has delivered testimony and commentary to the Science Advisory Board of the EPA recommending Mifepristone be given the designation so it can be monitored and evaluated.
Liberty Counsel Action President John Stemberger said, “The federal government needs to properly evaluate Mifepristone’s environmental and public health implications, which have been ignored for far too long. By being named directly on Contaminant Candidate List 6, it will get the evaluation it needs and will not be overlooked by the EPA.”
Just one problem: There’s no evidence that mifepristone even exists in drinking water, let alone at levels that could affect health, and Unruh offers none. As one report points out:
Environmental health experts have consistently said there is no scientific evidence that abortion medication causes harm to the environment — or to humans. Both reproductive rights advocates and environmental scientists have said that the argument co-opts environmental policy as a pathway to weaponize and stigmatize health care.
“This is really part of a broader effort to restrict access to medication abortion,” said Anna Bernstein, principal federal policy adviser at the Guttmacher Institute, a research organization that supports reproductive rights. She said anti-abortion activists are increasingly turning to “every lever they can” as medication abortion has become the largest share of abortion care nationwide.
[…]These experts consistently point out that there is no scientific basis for treating mifepristone or other abortion medication as a water contaminant. Nathan Donley, the environmental health science director at the Center for Biological Diversity, pointed out that mifepristone is used by a small fraction of the population and is typically taken as a one-time dose. By comparison, many pharmaceuticals taken daily by tens of millions of Americans enter wastewater systems in far greater quantities. He also noted that mifepristone was not included among nearly 700 pharmaceutical compounds the EPA previously screened for potential water contamination concerns.
Unruh refused to allow this view to appear in his articles.