Pro-Life Group Puts FDA on Notice Over Abortion Pill Waste and Endangered Species

Students for Life of America, a leading pro-life advocacy group, released a letter Thursday announcing its intent to sue the U.S. Food and Drug Administration over alleged Endangered Species Act violations tied to pharmaceutical waste from the chemical abortion pill mifepristone.

In July, the group announced a peer-reviewed study published in Issues in Law & Medicine, a journal of the Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine (JAHM), that found significant levels of mifepristone in all but one of nine sampling classes of water collected in three U.S. cities, including in some tap water. After months of pressing the FDA over those contaminants, the group is taking another step by putting the agency on formal notice that it intends to sue.

“FDA is thus in violation of Section 7 of the ESA for failing to engage in consultation with the Services in connection with approving mifepristone and issuing REMS for it,” the letter states. “SFLA, its affiliates, and its members enjoy recreating, observing, and studying endangered species impacted by this decision and have plans to continue doing so in the future.”

“By failing to follow the substantive and procedural requirements of the ESA, FDA has injured and continues to injure SFLA, its affiliates, and their members. Per this notice, the ESA gives FDA 60 days to resolve these violations. If it does not do so, we will pursue litigation,” the letter adds.

The letter, sent to Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., acting FDA Commissioner Kyle Diamantas, and acting Center for Drug Evaluation and Research Director Michael Davis, says the organization is seeking to prevent the “dumping of mifepristone into the waterways of the United States and the inevitable harm that has occurred and will continue to occur for endangered species.”

According to the study published earlier this year, researchers tested water from Austin, Texas; Blacksburg, Virginia; and Carbondale, Illinois; including household taps. The study found significant levels of anti-progesterone activity consistent with mifepristone in eight of nine sampling classes, with concentrations reaching 0.041 micrograms per liter, and concluded conventional treatment did not reliably remove the contaminant.

Students for Life America’s letter says animals listed under the Endangered Species Act, including freshwater mussels such as the Balcones spike, Texas fawnsfoot, fatmucket, and pimpleback, are “uniquely vulnerable to such exposures, given their particular susceptibility to chemical pollution from wastewater effluent.”

“Anyone who has paid attention to the scope of the impact of the Endangered Species Act can tell you that ignoring risks to species at risk of extinction is not acceptable. We wish that risk to preborn babies and their mothers matter as much. But as a matter of law, we don’t have to show harm to endangered species, we need to show risk,” Kristi Hamrick, Students for Life America’s vice president of media and policy, told the Daily Signal.

“Studies in other countries show risk. A peer reviewed US study shows the presence of mifepristone and mifepristone equivalents, an endocrine blocker, which carries risk for endangered species,” Hamrick added. “A short letter from the FDA claiming that the law does not apply will not cut it, legally or practically. The ESA is a serious law and we have serious concerns.” 

The group is giving the FDA 60 days to pull mifepristone from the market and begin Endangered Species Act review. The letter says more than 50 tons of blood and placental tissue contaminated with mifepristone are expelled into U.S. waterways each year. 

“The FDA has 60 days to pull the drug from the market and begin real evaluation. Their own forms show that compliance with the ESA is a regular checkpoint,” Hamrick told the Daily Signal. “As a result of federal policy, more than 50 tons of chemically tainted blood and placenta tissue, along with human remains and waste, go into our waterway each year. Hospitals and outpatient medical facilities can’t flush pathological medical waste.”

The pro-life group says endangered or threatened species exist in all 50 states and that a progesterone blocker may affect more than 1,500 protected species. The group said it named some of those species in the notice and circulated a broader list to state attorneys general. 

“In each of the 50 states, there are endangered species. We named some in the Notice of Intent to Sue, but we have circulated to attorneys general the broader list,” Hamrick said. 

“You don’t have to be pro-life to want clean drinking water. And you don’t have to be pro-life to want endangered species to be protected.”

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