Republican attorneys general from 14 states — led by Missouri Attorney General Catherine Hanaway — sent a letter to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency earlier this month demanding action on what they warn is “a growing threat to the country’s waterways.”

So what gives? Has America’s staunchly pro-industrial party suddenly become a bunch of tree huggers? No. The attorneys general's EPA gambit is an all-too-obvious head-fake in service to a more familiar goal: denying reproductive rights to women.

The letter claims, without evidence, that the abortion-inducing drug mifepristone poses an environmental threat and potential health hazards because trace amounts of it end up in wastewater after women use it for medication-induced abortions. It asks the EPA to classify it as a potential contaminant, which could ultimately lead to restricting or banning it.

The EPA has long confirmed that while trace amounts of the drug (like many drugs) do end up in the water system, it is at such minuscule levels as to present no “adverse environmental effects.” That didn’t stop the AGs from drawing the opposite conclusion based on their political goal of eroding reproductive rights.

“In our capacity as chief legal officer of our respective states, we have become aware of a growing threat to the country’s waterways as a result of the pharmaceutical drug mifepristone,” the letter begins.

Thus, right off the bat, it presents a debunked assertion as if it’s fact.

PolitiFact, the Poynter Institute’s Pulitzer Prize-winning fact-checking site, took on the question three years ago, when an anti-choice activist group called Students for Life was making the same argument.

Here’s a summarizing passage from the deeply researched PolitiFact piece: Environmental scientists and engineers told PolitiFact there is no evidence that mifepristone has harmed the environment or people via wastewater.

“There is absolutely no evidence that this is an environmental issue,” said Nathan Donley, the environmental health science director for the Center for Biological Diversity. “Pharmaceutical waste can be a big issue when we're talking about widely used drugs, but to somehow point to mifepristone as a bad actor here is completely disingenuous.”

Students for Life cited one scientific paper in its petition that identified at least three active metabolites, or byproducts, in mifepristone that can remain active after passing through a person’s system. But this is typical of many pharmaceuticals. It is not a sign that the drug is harmful.

"It’s certainly not uncommon” for substances to maintain some original activity as they degrade, said Heather Preisendanz, an agricultural and biological engineering professor at Penn State University. “It’s often true even for things that aren't pharmaceuticals."

In other words, there’s nothing about mifepristone that makes it any different than other pharmaceuticals that inevitably wind up in the water system in such small concentrations that they pose no environmental or health threat.

Against that clear-eyed assessment, Hanaway and her fellow attorneys general (from Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Florida, Idaho, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Nebraska, Louisiana, Oklahoma, South Carolina and Texas) offer this bit of sophistry: “(I)f mifepristone reaches sufficient concentration, pregnant women who unintentionally ingest the drug through the public water supply could be at greater risk of health complications than the general population.”

True. And if blood thinners, antibiotics, pain relievers, caffeine and the wide array of other substances that find their way into the water system reach “sufficient concentration” there, it would pose health risks to the entire population. But, like mifepristone, they show up in levels of mere parts per billion (or less), rendering them harmless.

The letter — which is presented on Hanaway’s official stationary as Missouri’s attorney general — states that the AGs are motivated to “protect women from the harms associated with mifepristone.”

In fact, medication abortion, which by definition is used very early in pregnancy, is by far the safest form of abortion. Restricting medication abortion would very likely create more health hazards for women seeking abortions by forcing them to turn to more invasive medical procedures.

Missourians two years ago voted to overturn Missouri’s draconian abortion ban. The fact that Hanaway and her fellow anti-choice politicians feel the need to chip at that decision with this sleight of hand should be insulting not just to abortion-rights supporters in Missouri but to all Missourians.

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