U.S. Representative Mary Miller (R-IL), a mother of 11 children, introduced the Second Chance for Moms Act on the House floor in January, one week after the second inauguration of President Donald Trump, who has taken credit for ending Roe v. Wade, the 1973 Supreme Court decision that established a woman’s constitutional right to an abortion.
Miller’s bill (H.R. 796) seeks “To amend the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act to require a warning label advising that the effects of mifepristone can be counteracted, to amend the Public Health Service Act to establish a hotline to provide information to women seeking to counteract the effects of mifepristone, and for other purposes.”
Note: Mifepristone, a medication approved by the FDA in 2000, is primarily used to end an early pregnancy (typically within the first 10 weeks). It is also used to treat conditions like Cushing’s syndrome. Possible side effects are described in the labeling and in the Medication Guide.
On Tuesday, the third anniversary of the Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision that overturned Roe, Miller said: “Since the previous administration rescinded safety regulations for chemical abortions, women are being harmed and our water supply is being severely contaminated.”
U.S. Rep. Mary Miller (R-IL): The nation’s water supply “is being severely contaminated” by abortion drugs.pic.twitter.com/l1yax6z3Iy
— The Intellectualist (@highbrow_nobrow) June 24, 2025
[During the Biden administration, the FDA deregulated mifepristone, allowing pregnant women to receive the pill (a one-time, single-dose product) by mail.]
While the FDA and multiple environmental health experts say there is no evidence that mifepristone is present in the nation’s waterways at concerning levels, many Republicans including Miller are asking the EPA to investigate.
According to the research of Tracey Woodruff, an environmental health professor at the University of California San Francisco, an EPA investigation won’t confirm Miller’s assertion. Woodruff’s studies have shown that “when traces of hormonal birth control medications make it into rivers and streams, they enter the environment from industrial farms that don’t treat their wastewater, not via human consumption.”
Woodruff asserts that political agendas, not scientific data, are driving the interest in mifepristone’s alleged presence in the water: “All kinds of pharmaceuticals are in the drinking water supply, so the fact that this group is making this argument is not actually about drinking water. They are doing this to control women’s bodies.”