All Senate Democrats Sign Letter Asking EPA's Zeldin to Drop Abortion Pills From Water Surveillance Study

Since the EPA announced in September that it would run a surveillance study for the abortion drugs mifepristone and misoprostol in drinking water, the fight has moved to the Senate. On Thursday, Oct. 15, the entire Democratic caucus, led by Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.), sent Administrator Lee Zeldin a letter demanding the drugs come off the list.

Murray is Vice Chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee. The letter asks Zeldin to remove mifepristone, misoprostol and their metabolites from the list of emerging contaminants targeted for surveillance.

What the senators are asking

The letter calls the study "a stark departure from past EPA practice." The senators say it "serves to further this administration's attacks on reproductive health care and distracts from your agency's critical role protecting Americans from known chemical pollutants in our water systems."

They also wrote: "It is deeply alarming that this kind of radical, anti-science campaign might have an audience at the EPA."

The senators want three things from Zeldin:

• The "statutory, regulatory, and scientific basis" for the review.
• The expected timeline.
• A list of every meeting between EPA staff and outside organizations, including Students for Life of America, about surveilling or regulating mifepristone.

The letter sets no deadline in the material released.

The testing campaign sits outside the normal process

This is not part of the EPA's routine update to the Safe Drinking Water Act contaminant list. It is also not part of any established unregulated contaminant monitoring list. Because of that, no regulation is required.

The agency can run the study without a rulemaking. That is also why the senators are asking what legal authority it rests on.

There is no published scientific evidence that abortion pills are harming the water supply or people who drink from it. The senators say the FDA has deemed both drugs safe for patients for more than 25 years. They add that the drugs were reaffirmed as safe for the environment as recently as 2025.

"There is no scientific evidence – recent or otherwise – that demonstrates a need for an EPA surveillance study," the letter states.

Zeldin's earlier statement

The letter points to a contradiction. The senators say Zeldin told the Appropriations Committee he was "not aware" of any efforts to detect medication abortion drugs in water. They allege the EPA had in fact engaged with anti-abortion groups and encouraged them to pressure the agency to regulate the drugs.

That is the senators' allegation. The letter does not include a documented meeting record, which is why they are requesting one.

Students for Life of America has been the leading organization pushing the EPA to investigate whether mifepristone is contaminating the water supply. It has also pushed to require utilities nationwide to monitor for the drugs. Anti-abortion activists, state attorneys general and lawmakers have lobbied for this kind of testing for years.

The larger fight over the pills

Medication is now the most common method of abortion since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. Women usually take the pills at home during the first 10 weeks of pregnancy. Limiting access has become a major focus of the anti-abortion movement.

Scientists expect any detection results from the EPA study to be used in the broader campaign to pull mifepristone from the market. The senators say as much, describing the study as opening "the door to new attacks on safe and accessible reproductive health care."

People on the other side of the issue frame the drug safety question differently. A Daily Wire opinion piece argues the FDA has been too slow on its own mifepristone safety review. It says a court-ordered update shows no action expected until at least March. It also says HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. first promised the study to the Senate on Jan. 30, 2025.

The same piece cites reviews from the Ethics and Public Policy Center and the Restoration of America Foundation, released in April 2025. It says they found serious adverse events in as many as 1 in 10 women. It also cites a May 2025 Charlotte Lozier Institute analysis of nearly 29,000 emergency room visits. That analysis says most visits after drug-induced abortions were miscoded as natural miscarriages.

Those are the claims of anti-abortion researchers and a conservative commentary outlet. The FDA process they criticize is separate from the EPA's water study, which concerns environmental presence, not patient safety.

What comes next

The key open question is whether Zeldin answers the three specific requests. He has not publicly said what legal authority the study relies on, how long it will run, or who the EPA met with before announcing it. The meeting list is the one most likely to settle the dispute over his earlier "not aware" testimony.