"...
There is no scientific evidence that brief and limited exposure to OC causes miscarriage. There is also no clear evidence that CS is an abortifacient. The claim appears to have
originated from Andrei Tchernitchin, a toxicology expert at the University of Chile.
Tchernitchin said in 2011 that CS might “induce abortions or premature deliveries” and that “Israel confirmed that this component is abortifacient.”
This claim is based on reports in 1988 that tear gas fired into enclosed spaces caused “
dozens of miscarriages” in Palestinian women. However, a fact-finding mission by Physicians for Human Rights “could not substantiate, in any way, rumors of an increase in miscarriages.” As a 1989 GAO report on “
Use of U.S.-Manufactured Tear Gas in the Occupied Territories” notes, “Although allegations of large numbers of spontaneous abortions and miscarriages were widespread in the Palestinian community, the physicians who the fact-finding group spoke with had found no obvious change in the rate.” Similarly anecdotal reports from Bahrain and Chile
claim a correlation between frequent and prolonged exposure to CS exposure and miscarriage, though no clinical evidence has supported such findings.
This is not to say that CS and OC are
cannot or
have not ever had an abortifacient effect, only that more study is needed to make a clear determination. Yet we can say there is currently insufficient evidence to make the strong claim that “tear gas is an abortifacient..."