East Texas lawmaker files bill to test drinking water for, um, abortion medication?

There’s never a shortage of bizarre and asinine bills filed when the Texas Legislature convenes.

And first-term State Rep. Joanne Shofner, whom Gov. Greg Abbott spent $450,000 to help get elected, filed a doozie this session.

The Nacogdoches Republican’s House Bill 3734 would require the state to test its drinking water for mifepristone, a widely used abortion medication conservatives have sought to ban, along with estrogen, the hormones responsible for the human body’s development of female characteristics.

Does the filing of HB 3734 signify that Shofner is worried someone’s dosing the water supply with abortion drugs and estrogen in hopes of killing fetuses and making rugged Texas men more effeminate?

Does it mean she wants to detect the widespread use of mifepristone and estrogen in various locales around the state — and doesn’t understand that one does that by testing sewage waste, not drinking water?

Most likely, her filing is a bid to bolster anti-abortion groups that have tried to claim mifepristone and birth control pills, which contain estrogen, should be banned because they contaminate the water supply.

After fact-checking the allegation with environmental scientists and engineers, Politifact determined there’s “no evidence that mifepristone has harmed the environment or people via wastewater.” Still, plenty of politicians are determined not to let the facts get in the way of a good primary vote.

What were Shofner’s motivations? Hard to know since her briefly worded bill doesn’t explain the purpose of mandating the tests, which would be required to start Sept. 1.

Shofner’s office wasn’t any help getting to the bottom of the matter either. Her chief of staff, Pam Johnson, didn’t respond to the Current‘s request for comment by press time.

Shofner — a former president of the Nacogdoches County Republican Party and a “Christian life coach” by profession — was one of the pro-school voucher candidates backed by Gov. Greg Abbott to throw out GOP House members who opposed using tax dollars to pay for private school tuitions.

Shofner won her term with 60% of the vote, unseating six-term GOP House member Travis Clardy. Along the way she also attracted endorsements from then-presidential candidate Donald Trump and U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz.

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This article appears in Mar 5-18, 2025.