 - Shoshoni Public Works Director Michael Quiver expressed opposition this week to a legislative bill draft that would prohibit abortion drugs from entering any public water supply, community water system, or the waters of the state.){kind=link}
(Shoshoni, WY) – Shoshoni Public Works Director Michael Quiver expressed opposition this week to a legislative bill draft that would prohibit abortion drugs from entering any public water supply, community water system, or the waters of the state.
House Bill 159 requires the Department of Environmental Quality to create rules setting “requirements for the testing of community water systems and public water supplies to ensure that endocrine-disrupting chemical byproducts of abortion drugs do not enter a water system or water supply.”
But Quiver explained that there “is really no way of testing (our water) right now to know if someone took” an abortion drug like mifepristone.
Even if a test were available, he added, “I don’t see any health concerns for it,” because, while abortion drugs “might leech into the groundwater … it’s going to be like one part per billion if they find it.”
“I don’t really like this bill,” Quiver told the Shoshoni Town Council during a regular meeting Tuesday. “I really don’t care for it. … All it does (is) make us pay for more testing.”
Councilmember Mark Nordeen agreed with Quiver, calling HB 159 a “silly bill.”
“The concentration of what they’d be looking for is so small (it’s) impossible to identify,” Nordeen said.
Other parts of HB 159 are “disgusting,” he continued, pointing to the section that requires doctors to provide “a catch kit and medical waste bag” to patients seeking chemical abortions, along with “instructions for the patient on how to use the catch kit and to bring the catch kit and medical waste bag to the health care provider for proper disposal.”
“The woman has to collect the specimen and then take it back to her doctor,” Nordeen said. “Are you kidding me? … It’s dehumanizing.”
“That’s the point of the bill,” Shoshoni Police Department Chief Chris Konija said, responding to Nordeen’s comments. “That’s the whole purpose of it.”
Lander resident and Chelsea’s Fund Executive Director Christine Lichtenfels referred to HB 159 as “cruel” when she testified against the bill in front of the House Labor, Health and Social Services Committee this month.
There is no evidence that chemical abortion drugs like mifepristone cause “any water quality issues” Lichtenfels said during her testimony, pointing out that doctors also prescribe mifepristone to treat ailments like Cushing Syndrome.
Lichtenfels said taking mifepristone for Cushing Syndrome “results in over two times as much mifepristone in water than medical termination of early pregnancy does.”
“Are you then going to require that (Cushing Syndrome patients) all catch their feces and urine on an ongoing basis?” she asked. “That’s not feasible, (and) that’s not sanitary. We should not be doing this.”
If lawmakers are truly concerned about endocrine disruptors in Wyoming waters, Lichtenfels continued, “there are much greater sources right now that would be more important to regulate, such as fracking chemicals.”
“We might, in Wyoming, spend more time focusing on that if our goal is to limit endocrine disruptors,” Lichtenfels said.
The House Labor Committee voted 6-2 in favor of HB 159 this month, with Wyoming Reps. Pepper Ottman and Joel Guggenmos – both R-Riverton – casting “ay” votes.
It was placed on General File in the Wyoming House of Representatives last week.