A leading pro-life organization on Thursday threatened to take the Food and Drug Administration to court, saying the agency broke federal environmental law by approving and expanding access to the dangerous and deadly abortion pill mifepristone without studying its risks to wildlife and waterways.
Students for Life of America said its attorneys at First & Fourteenth filed a notice of intent to sue the FDA for failing to consult wildlife agencies under the Endangered Species Act.
The group said a progesterone blocker used in chemical abortion may harm more than 1,500 protected species in all 50 states. The FDA now has 60 days to respond before a lawsuit is filed.
The notice arrived hours before Dr. Heidi Overton was scheduled to appear at a Senate confirmation hearing to lead the agency.
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“We expect these environmental concerns to be taken seriously. I know Dr. Overton is aware of these concerns. Or we expect to see the Trump FDA in court. That’s where this will end,” SFLA President Kristan Hawkins told Fox News Digital.
In an email to LifeNews.com, Hawkins said the legal fight is about more than one study.
It “rests on the failure of the FDA in 2000 to literally follow the law.”
“In 2000 at the beginning of the Clinton Administration, chemical abortion pills were forced on the U.S. market, with all kinds of promises made, promises broken by abortion promoters — all with the FDA’s rubber stamp, signing off on abortion profiteers’ claims about how ‘safe’ the deadly pills would be. Twenty-six years later, we know better,” she said.
She said later administrations weakened safeguards even as women sometimes died and health-care workers’ conscience rights were violated.
“But just as mifepristone and mifepristone equivalents have been found in the water in Europe, a new study confirms their detection in U.S. water supplies. Studies worldwide have shown that aquatic and animal life can be impacted. 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 protected from abortion-related water pollution. The shield of ESA regulation must be used to cover lives caught in the balance as a result of the FDA’s negligence.”
First & Fourteenth partner Lincoln Wilson said the Endangered Species Act requires federal agencies to consult fish and wildlife services before taking any action that may affect a listed or threatened species.
“And the scientific literature shows that mifepristone in water has adverse effects on wildlife, but the FDA never consulted on the matter. That means FDA’s actions for mifepristone, including approving abortion by mail, are void.”
SFLA argued that hundreds of thousands of chemical abortions each year are completed at home, with remains and drug waste flushed into the sewer system.
“Where do all the babies go in chemical abortions?” Hawkins asked. “If we’re talking 600,000 to 700,000 abortions a year being induced with chemical abortion pills, where are they happening? She doesn’t go to a facility to complete the abortion. The abortion often takes weeks at home. She is told to go and sit on a toilet to flush.”
The group cited research that includes a paper in Issues in Law & Medicine reporting anti-progesterone activity in water samples from three U.S. cities. SFLA said that finding, together with studies abroad, shows abortion-related water pollution is no longer theoretical.
“This should be something that unites all Americans, regardless of how you feel about the violence of abortion. I certainly am pro-life, I wanna see abortion ended. But we all want clean drinking water,” Hawkins said.
The organization said it had already filed 11 citizen petitions seeking environmental review.
On Jan. 15, 2025, five days before President Donald Trump returned to office, the FDA rejected SFLA’s argument that it was required to consult the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service or the National Marine Fisheries Service before approving mifepristone.
SFLA is now demanding that the FDA conduct the required environmental testing, pull the drugs from the market while that testing is underway, require biohazard bags for abortion waste under the Risk Evaluation and Mitigation Strategy, and refuse a pending request to relabel mifepristone for “miscarriage care.”
“We know that the abortion lobby is making a play to force mifepristone into every state as a ‘miscarriage treatment,’ giving abortionists a foothold no matter what laws protect life,” Hawkins said. “That pending action demands an ESA review, as vulnerable lives will be threatened by supersized mifepristone and mifepristone-equivalent water pollution.”
The group is also asking the Environmental Protection Agency to add mifepristone to pharmaceuticals tracked under the Safe Drinking Water Act.
SFLA said young voters are on its side.
A 2026 SurveyUSA poll for the group’s Demetree Institute for Pro-Life Advancement found that 89% of youth voters support studies on the environmental impact of abortion-related waste and drugs, and 94% said a federal review of chemical-abortion-pill policy was important.
Hawkins said Overton should find the legal notice waiting when she arrives.
“Today, Dr. Heidi Overton will be at the U.S. Senate,” she said. “And we want to be very clear that when she gets to her desk, when she gets confirmed, and she sits down, the first thing she sees on her desk is our notice to intent to sue.”
“It is high time to hold the abortion industry accountable and to hold our government accountable for upholding our own laws that have been enacted to protect all of us as well as the animals within our country.”
