Since the leak of a United States Supreme Court draft opinion that would overturn Roe v. Wade, communities nationwide have weighed in on the impacts this looming change in national policy will have on both individual states and individual bodies. Let me hopefully not be the first to remind you that these policy decisions will affect the environment and ocean, too.
Climate change is the greatest threat to oceans worldwide, to the future of biodiversity on earth, and particularly to the survival of humanity. We are currently experiencing the effects of a changing climate in a multitude of ways including but not limited to increased fire risk, increased poor air quality days, decreased water supply, long term drought, saltwater intrusion, rising sea level, increased coastal storms and erosion, warming ocean temperatures, northward shifting biomes, marine life die-offs, toxic algal blooms, impacted fisheries and fishery economies, and more. We’re hard pressed to not find linkages between any ocean conservation issue and a changing climate.
Climate change disproportionately harms those who are historically and presently made vulnerable from unjust social issues such as racism, sexism, poverty, homophobia and transphobia, among others. If you are systemically prevented from living comfortably and accumulating resources that ease your survival, climate change is harder for you. Generationally, if people are forced to carry unwanted pregnancy to term, there’s a higher likelihood that their offspring will face disproportionate climate related impacts. More people will suffer, and more suffering people in the second most consumptive country on earth will increase greenhouse gas emissions.
What does “the right to life” mean in scenarios of forced suffering?
Project Drawdown is a nonprofit that “seeks to help the world reach ‘drawdown’—the future point in time when levels of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere stop climbing and start to steadily decline.” The name of the organization is also the title of a 2017 book, Drawdown, offering a comprehensive resource for climate solutions. One key recommendation from the organization is gender empowerment and gender equity. Project Drawdown has said that providing access to contraceptives and rights-based reproductive care can “[reduce] maternal and child mortality and [produce] better health outcomes,” as well as “[strengthen] climate change-affected communities’ ability to adapt. With fewer unintended pregnancies, slower population growth reduces pressure on climate-sensitive resources.”
In April of this year, the Center for Biological Diversity released a report titled “Gender and the Climate Crisis: Equitable Solutions for Climate Plans.” The report notes that “Project Drawdown’s health and education solutions may be seen as only applicable to low-income countries, but children born in wealthier countries have a much larger carbon footprint. Universal access to voluntary family planning in the United States, one of the world’s highest consuming countries, could have a substantial environmental impact.” According to a study published in the New England Journal of Medicine by Finer and Zolna and corroborated by a 2019 Brookings report, 45% of pregnancies in the United States are unintended. Should Roe. v. Wade be overruled, the federal right to access safe abortion would no longer exist. States would determine abortion policies and 12 states with trigger laws would immediately criminalize it.
According to the United Nations, 80% of those displaced worldwide by climate change are women and children. In an April 2022 piece, “Climate Change Is Forcing American Women From Their Homes,” Ms. Magazine argues that single-parent households and women with young children are more vulnerable as women earn less money than men, and nearly 13% of women live under the national poverty line. The Center for Biological Diversity report also backs this claim, stating that “women lose their jobs more often than men after natural disasters and, since women generally earn less money than men, they have fewer resources to rely on during times of climate-related crises.” According to a report by the Women’s Environmental Network titled, Gender and the Climate Change Agenda: The impacts of climate change on women and public policy, “the economic and health impacts of more prolonged droughts, reduced food production, and severe weather events are disproportionately felt by women.”
Climate chaos can also put women and gender-diverse people at a higher risk of sexual assault. “After floods, monsoons, and landslides, women face higher rates of both sexual violence and health problems,” cited The Annals of the Association of American Geographer journal’s piece titled, The Gendered Nature of Natural Disasters: The Impact of Catastrophic Events on the Gender Gap in Life Expectancy. For example, the National Sexual Violence Resource Center reports that crowded evacuation shelters expose women and children to an increased risk of sexual assault as registered sex offenders and families are sometimes housed in the same building. Almost a third of reported instances of sexual assault during Hurricane Katrina occurred in evacuation shelters.
The pregnant body is inherently vulnerable. The U.S. is the only ‘developed’ nation with an increasing maternal mortality rate. The Centers for Disease Control estimates that Black women experience maternal mortality at a rate two to three times higher than that of white women. As a nation, we are already failing at protecting the lives of pregnant people. In climate chaos, stress from disasters and increased pollution can harm a pregnant body and baby in utero. “Extreme heat exposure has been linked to preterm labor, stillborn births, low birth weight, infant mortality, and developmental delays. Wildfire smoke increases chances of preterm birth, low birth weight, and psychosocial stress that affects fetal development. The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists has recognized climate change as an urgent women’s health issue.”
I unequivocally denounce the idea of “population control.” When people are empowered to make decisions for their own bodies and families, fertility rates decrease. Obviously, forcing people to carry an unintended pregnancy to term will increase the human population on earth – a planet with rapidly decreasing resources and exponentially increasing climate events.
The Center for Biological Diversity’s report recommends that governments, “Build gender empowerment programs that include offering comprehensive sex education, supporting contraception access, keeping abortion legal, providing access to period products, funding quality education programs, and addressing racial inequality in schools.” I hope to see you at an upcoming protest carrying a sign that reads, “Bans off our Bodies for a Livable Planet.”
Rachel Kippen is an ocean educator and sustainability advocate in Santa Cruz County and can be reached at newsroom@santacruzsentinel.com.
