In the past several years, we have seen the frequency and intensity of extreme climate events increase. Most recently, the devastating flash floods in Texas and New Mexico have already claimed over 100 lives. The recent reconciliation bill (H.R. 1) made federal funding cuts that will facilitate climate change, harming health outcomes by worsening air quality and other public health factors. It’s too little known, however, that the climate crisis will also impede progress towards achieving reproductive justice. This commentary will describe that intersection, and the consequences of failing to act; and it will close by discussing the Protecting Moms and Babies Against Climate Change Act, a promising policy solution.
How Climate Impacts Reproductive Justice
Reproductive justice includes the right to have children, the right to not have children, and the right to raise children in a safe and healthy environment. The climate crisis puts all three pillars of reproductive justice in jeopardy. Both having and preventing children is only going to become more dangerous and challenging as climate change continues to accelerate. Climate change and the resulting extreme weather events themselves also make the right to raise children in a safe and healthy environment effectively obsolete for millions across the country.
The Right to Have Children
Pregnant women and birthing people are at increased vulnerability to climate change because extreme climate events, such as extreme heat, flooding, or wildfires, have been linked to several health problems that can lead to maternal morbidities (such as anemia, preeclampsia, low birth weight, preterm birth, and miscarriage) and infant health issues.
Researchers found that after climate disasters like Hurricane Katrina and Hurricane Sandy, women who experienced two or more hardships (like losing a loved one or their home being destroyed) were more likely to experience postpartum depression. Children who were in utero during a climate disaster were also found to have developmental and health impacts. Globally, researchers have also found that exposure to flood during pregnancy increases the risk of pregnancy loss.
Extreme heat and environmental air pollution are also detrimental: researchers have connected both to preterm birth, miscarriage, stillbirth, and a host of maternal morbidities. Physiological changes that occur during pregnancy and postpartum can also make women and birthing people more susceptible to insect-, food-, and water-related illnesses, which often increase during extreme climate events.
Pregnant women also have additional logistical needs while pregnant (such as access to clean water and prenatal care) which can be disrupted during climate-related events like floods, wildfires, and extreme heat. This is enough of an issue that the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention created an emergency preparedness page just for pregnant women.
And finally, pollution and environmental toxins generated by major corporations, left unchecked by government regulation, can also have long-term deleterious effects on fertility (such as impaired implantation of a fertilized egg or endocrine disruption) and cause reproductive cancers.
The Right to Not Have Children
Extreme weather events and climate catastrophes can cause severe disruptions to the already weakened and fragmented U.S. reproductive health care infrastructure, resulting in delayed access to essential pregnancy prevention methods as well as abortion care. For example, after Hurricane Ike, researchers identified reduced access to contraceptive care, and Hurricane Helene worsened already declining access to abortion care in southern states. Gaps in access to family planning services are directly linked to high rates of unplanned pregnancy, impacting people’s right to not have children.
The Right to Raise Children in a Safe and Healthy Environment
Save the Children found that children born in 2020 will face two to seven times more extreme weather events than their grandparents did. Moreover, children’s health is more impacted by climate change than adults’. For example, rising temperatures and increasing pollutants in the air make it more challenging for children to play outside and get exercise, increases the occurrence of asthma and respiratory illnesses, and can impair learning and cognition.
Who Is Most at Risk?
According to the Climate Change Risk Index, nine out of the ten states most likely to experience the worst impacts of climate change are in the South (Kentucky, Arkansas, Texas, Georgia, Mississippi, North Carolina, Louisiana, South Carolina, and Florida). These states also have some of the highest maternal mortality rates, as well as some of the highest shares of Black births (specifically, Mississippi, Louisiana, Georgia, and North Carolina).
Climate justice is not unlike reproductive justice in that it demands we take an intersectional and equity-focused approach to creating solutions and tackling challenges.
Climate justice is not unlike reproductive justice in that it demands we take an intersectional and equity-focused approach to creating solutions and tackling challenges. The racial disparities in how climate change has and will continue to impact communities across the country mirror the racial inequities seen in maternal and reproductive health outcomes.
Intersectional Problems Demand Intersectional Solutions
Scientists have confirmed that climate change is not only failing to slow down: it is worsening. Both the causes and impacts of climate change are intersectional, and therefore the solutions must also be. We cannot be siloed in a policy approach.
The Protecting Moms and Babies Against Climate Change Act, part of the Momnibus Act, seeks to end the racial disparities in adverse maternal health outcomes caused by climate change. The 2023 version of the bill directs the Department of Health and Human Services to establish a program to award grants to partnerships of community-based organizations and other entities, enabling them to identify and address climate change-related risks through means such as provider training, data collection, and direct services, including access to cooling shelters and evacuation assistance. It also directs the National Institutes of Health to establish the Consortium on Birth and Climate Change Research, and directs the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to develop a strategy to identify areas where there is a high risk of adverse maternal and infant health outcomes due to climate change.
Last reintroduced in the House and Senate in 2023, this bill has yet to be reintroduced in this session of Congress. Before reintroduction, policymakers must ensure that it is updated with relevant data and statistics to highlight the continuing disparities in health outcomes driven by the climate crisis.
To be sure, one piece of legislation is only a drop in the ocean of action that needs to happen to reduce and reverse the effects of climate change. In the United States alone, working towards reproductive justice through climate policy will require targeted and concerted efforts across all levels of government. Cities, counties, and states must fill the gap in climate policy left by the federal administration.
The recent reconciliation bill is only going to exacerbate the existing climate and maternal health crisis. This is not only as a result of the staggering cuts to federal health care programs such as Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act, but also from the bill’s gutting of clean energy incentives and pollution-reduction initiatives. While setting the country back when it comes to climate sensible policy solutions, H.R. 1 simultaneously subsidizes the oil and gas industry, offering roughly $15 billion in tax cuts for the fossil fuel sector.
If the policymakers who voted H.R. 1 into law claim to care about moms, children, and families in this country, they must act with urgency to safeguard reproductive justice in the face of the climate crisis.
Tags: climate change, mothers, reproductive health
The Climate Crisis Is Also a Reproductive Justice Crisis
In the past several years, we have seen the frequency and intensity of extreme climate events increase. Most recently, the devastating flash floods in Texas and New Mexico have already claimed over 100 lives. The recent reconciliation bill (H.R. 1) made federal funding cuts that will facilitate climate change, harming health outcomes by worsening air quality and other public health factors. It’s too little known, however, that the climate crisis will also impede progress towards achieving reproductive justice. This commentary will describe that intersection, and the consequences of failing to act; and it will close by discussing the Protecting Moms and Babies Against Climate Change Act, a promising policy solution.
How Climate Impacts Reproductive Justice
Reproductive justice includes the right to have children, the right to not have children, and the right to raise children in a safe and healthy environment. The climate crisis puts all three pillars of reproductive justice in jeopardy. Both having and preventing children is only going to become more dangerous and challenging as climate change continues to accelerate. Climate change and the resulting extreme weather events themselves also make the right to raise children in a safe and healthy environment effectively obsolete for millions across the country.
The Right to Have Children
Pregnant women and birthing people are at increased vulnerability to climate change because extreme climate events, such as extreme heat, flooding, or wildfires, have been linked to several health problems that can lead to maternal morbidities (such as anemia, preeclampsia, low birth weight, preterm birth, and miscarriage) and infant health issues.
Researchers found that after climate disasters like Hurricane Katrina and Hurricane Sandy, women who experienced two or more hardships (like losing a loved one or their home being destroyed) were more likely to experience postpartum depression. Children who were in utero during a climate disaster were also found to have developmental and health impacts. Globally, researchers have also found that exposure to flood during pregnancy increases the risk of pregnancy loss.
Extreme heat and environmental air pollution are also detrimental: researchers have connected both to preterm birth, miscarriage, stillbirth, and a host of maternal morbidities. Physiological changes that occur during pregnancy and postpartum can also make women and birthing people more susceptible to insect-, food-, and water-related illnesses, which often increase during extreme climate events.
Pregnant women also have additional logistical needs while pregnant (such as access to clean water and prenatal care) which can be disrupted during climate-related events like floods, wildfires, and extreme heat. This is enough of an issue that the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention created an emergency preparedness page just for pregnant women.
And finally, pollution and environmental toxins generated by major corporations, left unchecked by government regulation, can also have long-term deleterious effects on fertility (such as impaired implantation of a fertilized egg or endocrine disruption) and cause reproductive cancers.
The Right to Not Have Children
Extreme weather events and climate catastrophes can cause severe disruptions to the already weakened and fragmented U.S. reproductive health care infrastructure, resulting in delayed access to essential pregnancy prevention methods as well as abortion care. For example, after Hurricane Ike, researchers identified reduced access to contraceptive care, and Hurricane Helene worsened already declining access to abortion care in southern states. Gaps in access to family planning services are directly linked to high rates of unplanned pregnancy, impacting people’s right to not have children.
The Right to Raise Children in a Safe and Healthy Environment
Save the Children found that children born in 2020 will face two to seven times more extreme weather events than their grandparents did. Moreover, children’s health is more impacted by climate change than adults’. For example, rising temperatures and increasing pollutants in the air make it more challenging for children to play outside and get exercise, increases the occurrence of asthma and respiratory illnesses, and can impair learning and cognition.
Who Is Most at Risk?
According to the Climate Change Risk Index, nine out of the ten states most likely to experience the worst impacts of climate change are in the South (Kentucky, Arkansas, Texas, Georgia, Mississippi, North Carolina, Louisiana, South Carolina, and Florida). These states also have some of the highest maternal mortality rates, as well as some of the highest shares of Black births (specifically, Mississippi, Louisiana, Georgia, and North Carolina).
Climate justice is not unlike reproductive justice in that it demands we take an intersectional and equity-focused approach to creating solutions and tackling challenges. The racial disparities in how climate change has and will continue to impact communities across the country mirror the racial inequities seen in maternal and reproductive health outcomes.
Intersectional Problems Demand Intersectional Solutions
Scientists have confirmed that climate change is not only failing to slow down: it is worsening. Both the causes and impacts of climate change are intersectional, and therefore the solutions must also be. We cannot be siloed in a policy approach.
The Protecting Moms and Babies Against Climate Change Act, part of the Momnibus Act, seeks to end the racial disparities in adverse maternal health outcomes caused by climate change. The 2023 version of the bill directs the Department of Health and Human Services to establish a program to award grants to partnerships of community-based organizations and other entities, enabling them to identify and address climate change-related risks through means such as provider training, data collection, and direct services, including access to cooling shelters and evacuation assistance. It also directs the National Institutes of Health to establish the Consortium on Birth and Climate Change Research, and directs the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to develop a strategy to identify areas where there is a high risk of adverse maternal and infant health outcomes due to climate change.
Last reintroduced in the House and Senate in 2023, this bill has yet to be reintroduced in this session of Congress. Before reintroduction, policymakers must ensure that it is updated with relevant data and statistics to highlight the continuing disparities in health outcomes driven by the climate crisis.
To be sure, one piece of legislation is only a drop in the ocean of action that needs to happen to reduce and reverse the effects of climate change. In the United States alone, working towards reproductive justice through climate policy will require targeted and concerted efforts across all levels of government. Cities, counties, and states must fill the gap in climate policy left by the federal administration.
The recent reconciliation bill is only going to exacerbate the existing climate and maternal health crisis. This is not only as a result of the staggering cuts to federal health care programs such as Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act, but also from the bill’s gutting of clean energy incentives and pollution-reduction initiatives. While setting the country back when it comes to climate sensible policy solutions, H.R. 1 simultaneously subsidizes the oil and gas industry, offering roughly $15 billion in tax cuts for the fossil fuel sector.
If the policymakers who voted H.R. 1 into law claim to care about moms, children, and families in this country, they must act with urgency to safeguard reproductive justice in the face of the climate crisis.
Tags: climate change, mothers, reproductive health