In 1978, the Supreme Court stopped a nearly finished Tennessee dam to save a tiny fish called the snail darter.
Now pro-life students want the same federal law turned against the abortion pill.
They gave the FDA 60 days, and they named the small creatures they say could force it to act.
Students for Life Threatens to Sue the FDA Over the Abortion Pill
On September 24, Students for Life of America sent a formal notice of intent to sue the Food and Drug Administration.
The group says the FDA approved mifepristone in 2000 without ever consulting the wildlife agencies, as Section 7 of the Endangered Species Act requires.
"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.
The group has also charged that the FDA skipped those reviews again when it loosened the rules in 2016 under Barack Obama and in 2021 and 2023 under Joe Biden.
The notice went to Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., acting FDA Commissioner Kyle Diamantas and acting drug center director Michael Davis.
The law gives the agency 60 days to fix the problem before the group can file suit.
Students for Life wants the drug pulled from the market and a real environmental review started.
"We expect these environmental concerns to be taken seriously," president Kristan Hawkins told Fox News. "Or we expect to see the Trump FDA in court."
Kristan Hawkins Built an Army of Pro-Life Students to Fight the Abortion Pill
Hawkins launched Students for Life of America in 2006, the year after she graduated from Bethany College.
Today the group counts more than 1,635 campus groups in all 50 states and more than 250,000 students trained to defend life.
She is a wife and a mother of four.
On June 24, 2022, she stood on the steps of the Supreme Court and told the world Roe v. Wade was gone.
Now she has turned her movement against the pill used in most abortions in America.
Mifepristone cuts off progesterone, the hormone an unborn baby needs to keep growing.
A second drug, misoprostol, then forces the baby out.
Study Found Signs of the Abortion Pill in Drinking Water From Three Cities
In July, Students for Life announced a peer-reviewed study in Issues in Law & Medicine that tested water from Austin, Texas; Blacksburg, Virginia; and Carbondale, Illinois.
Some of those samples came straight out of household kitchen taps.
In eight of nine sampling categories, the tests picked up strong anti-progesterone activity – the same kind of hormone-blocking effect mifepristone causes.
The highest reading hit 0.041 micrograms per liter.
Ordinary water treatment could not be counted on to filter it out.
Joe Biden's 2023 mail-order rule sends the pill straight to women's homes, far from any medical waste system.
Students for Life says more than 50 tons of blood and placental tissue tainted with the drug go into American waterways every year as a result.
"Hospitals and outpatient medical facilities can't flush pathological medical waste," said Kristi Hamrick, the group's vice president of media and policy.
A woman taking the pill at home has no such rule.
Endangered Species Act Notice Names Four Freshwater Mussels
The notice names endangered freshwater mussels including the Balcones spike, Texas fawnsfoot, fatmucket and pimpleback, which it calls "uniquely vulnerable" to wastewater pollution.
Students for Life says more than 1,500 protected species could be affected, and it has sent that list to state attorneys general.
"As a matter of law, we don't have to show harm to endangered species, we need to show risk," Hamrick told The Daily Signal.
She also said what every pro-lifer was thinking.
"We wish that risk to preborn babies and their mothers matter as much," Hamrick said.
The Snail Darter Precedent Now Hangs Over the FDA and the Abortion Pill
Plenty of conservatives thought TVA v. Hill was a disaster.
The Tellico Dam had already cost taxpayers $78 million, and the justices said that money was legally irrelevant.
It took an act of Congress to finish the dam.
In the 1990s, the northern spotted owl shut down logging across the Pacific Northwest.
The environmental left built the Endangered Species Act into that kind of weapon.
Students for Life is simply asking them to live by their own rulebook.
If a tiny fish can stop a dam, freshwater mussels in Texas rivers deserve the same scrutiny when a drug ends up in the water.
In January 2025, the FDA told Students for Life it was "not required to consult" the wildlife agencies.
That answer runs straight into TVA v. Hill.
There is good news, too.
In September, Trump's Environmental Protection Agency announced plans for a study screening drinking water for about 1,400 emerging contaminants – including mifepristone and misoprostol.
Hawkins called it "a victory for common sense."
And Kennedy made his name as an environmental lawyer taking polluters to court over the Hudson River.
If anyone in Washington understands this fight, it is the man this letter was addressed to.
Since 2000, the FDA has called the abortion pill safe without once checking with the wildlife agencies, according to the letter.
"You don't have to be pro-life to want clean drinking water," Hamrick said.
Sources:
- Hailey Gomez, "Pro-Life Group Puts FDA on Notice Over Abortion Pill Waste and Endangered Species," The Daily Signal, September 24, 2026.
- James Cirrone, "Major Pro-Life Group Threatens to Sue Trump FDA Over Abortion Pill's Alleged Environmental Risks," Fox News, September 24, 2026.
- Students for Life of America, "Peer Reviewed Study Out: Testing Shows Abortion Drug Mifepristone in Drinking Water," July 24, 2026.
- Students for Life of America, "Students for Life Calls a Proposed EPA Study to Detect Mifepristone and Misoprostol in America's Drinking Water a Victory for Common Sense," September 11, 2026.
- Students for Life of America, "Kristan Hawkins," staff biography.
- U.S. Food and Drug Administration, response to Students for Life of America citizen petition, Docket No. FDA-2024-P-5967, May 21, 2025.
- U.S. Department of Justice, Environment and Natural Resources Division, "Tennessee Valley Authority v. Hill: The Snail Darter Case."
