What do Reproductive Rights Have to Do With Climate Justice?
With the overturn of Roe vs. Wade and a Constitutional Amendment on the ballot for the Kansas August 2nd Primary, we examine the intersection of Reproductive Justice and Climate Justice.
You’ve heard that Roe v. Wade has been repealed, and you’ve heard that there is a constitutional amendment on the Kansas primary ballot, Value Them Both.
Because of this Constitutional Amendment, all Kansans can vote in the primary election, even if they are unaffiliated with a party.
With the fall of federal abortion protection, state governments will now decide the future of reproductive rights– either to protect a person’s ability to choose or pass legislation to further restrict or ban the ability to access safe abortions. This August 2nd primary election is critical– the decision is in the hands of Kansans to protect the legal right to abortion or allow for a total ban.
Kansas has a long history around reproductive justice. But why is a climate organization talking about this, and how do these things relate to you as an environmentalist in Kansas?
Reproductive Justice is Climate Justice.
Reproductive justice is defined as a person’s right to choose to have or not have children and the ability to parent children in a safe and healthy environment. Climate justice involves creating a safe and healthy environment for all people, particularly those who are disproportionately impacted by the adverse effects of the climate crisis. These two issues are fundamentally intertwined.
Reproductive justice and climate justice are connected in a variety of ways; those discussed below primarily focus on the intersections of environmental impacts and their associated health risks. Both reproductive justice and climate justice call for personal autonomy over the ability to raise children in a safe environment.
Air Pollution
Pregnant people and newborns are generally considered vulnerable populations, and higher rates of air pollution can lead to more unhealthy births, infants, and mothers. According to this comprehensive study published in Jama Network Open, air pollution leads to higher risk of preterm births, low birth weights, and stillbirths. As air pollution worsens, reproductive difficulties increase, leading to a greater necessity for reproductive care and justice.
Heat
Higher temperatures and frequencies of heat waves also lead to more unhealthy births, infants, and mothers. Just as air pollution increases the risk of preterm births, low birth weights, and stillbirths, the EPA notes that extremely high temperatures and heat waves create the same harmful effects. As temperatures increase, energy burden, defined by the State and Local Solution Center as the “percentage of gross household income spent on energy costs,” will increase, adding to the difficulty in maintaining a safe environment for pregnancies or infants. Reproductive justice is even more imperative as the climate crisis increasingly harms mothers and infants.
Energy Burden
Low-income women of color are already disproportionately affected by climate change and restricted reproductive rights. Because of redlining and racially discriminatory laws, low-income women and women of color are at the frontlines of the climate crisis. Consequently, they face a higher risk of poor pregnancy outcomes. The higher energy burden on low-income households further hinders affording a safe environment for healthy pregnancies and infants. These disenfranchised populations already face abundant difficulties in the reproductive health sphere including (but not limited to) higher rates of maternal mortality for Black mothers. The climate crisis then compounds these difficulties, affecting these populations the most severely.
How could the Constitutional Amendment affect people impacted by climate justice?
Giving the Kansas Legislature the ability to impose further restrictions on abortion would put maternal and infant health at serious risk. Women of color living in low-income communities are already disportionately impacted by climate change. Decreased access to reproductive freedom would force them to raise children in these unhealthy and unsafe environments. People living in marginalized communities are most likely to have high risk pregnancies, and increased air pollution and frequency of high temperatures/hotter days create higher risks of fetal development, preterm births, stillbirths, and low birth weight. The increasing impacts of climate change and pollution necessitate greater reproductive justice protecting personal bodily autonomy, including the freedom to choose whether or not to have a child in the context of environmental risk. Thus, the implications of further reproductive restrictions will be a significant burden on the health of all birthing people and infants, especially women of color living in marginalized communities already feeling the worst impacts of climate change.
Go Vote!
Climate change exacerbates existing social and economic inequities, while the climate-resilient solutions yield multiple co-benefits across sectors. CEP amplifies community movements that build a healthy and resilient Kansas. To realize a healthy and resilient future for all Kansans, we need greater awareness of climate issues’ intersections with the struggle for justice across several movements.
Voting is just one way to build power in communities across Kansas, however, candidates running for elected office only listen to people who actually vote. If we want elected officials to address climate change and help build a more just world, we need to activate climate and energy voters. Your voice–your vote–matters! Cast your ballot in the August 2nd Primary Election and continue to remain civically engaged beyond election season with the Kansas Climate CORE.
Get Involved!
Join the Kansas Climate CORE and you’ll earn points for every action you take to build climate power in Kansas.
Find out what you can do below!
Sign the Kansas Climate CORE Voter Pledge
Join CEP and the Environmental Voter Project (EVP) to sign the Kansas Climate CORE Voter Pledge. You’ll commit to vote for a resilient Kansas in every election, which encourages Kansas politicians to prioritize climate issues.
Help Loved Ones Vote
Join the Kansas Climate CORE’s Voter to Voter team and support your contacts in casting their ballot. If you don’t want to join the team, commit to asking your closest loved ones if they’ve voted yet. Send them to ksballot.org for all they need to get to cast their vote by next Tuesday.
Phone Bank
We’re also partnering with the Environmental Voter Project to turn inactive environmentalists into consistent voters. So far our phone bank efforts has had 1,273 conversations to help get non-voting Kansans who prioritize Climate Action to the polls. Join us for our final Phone Bank effort on Election Day, August 2nd!
Climate + Energy Project staff, interns, and volunteers are not election officials. We will not tell anyone which candidates to vote for but may provide guidance on specific ballot measures. If you have any questions about either of these statements, please contact Sarah Dehart Faltico at faltico@
