“Environmental Justice is Reproductive Justice. The Supreme Court is working hard to destroy both. Let’s not let them.”

This was the stark posting from the Center for Women’s Health and Human Rights (CWHHR), the home base of this blog, during the final week of June. Six hard-right Supreme Court justices had just voted not only to overturn the right to abortion codified in Roe v. Wade, but to strike down the Environmental Protection Agency’s Clean Power Plan, arguably posing major obstacles to federal efforts to address the climate crisis.  The consequences of both decisions are potentially devastating—but how are they related? And why would a center dedicated to women’s health and human rights equate justice on the reproductive rights and environmental fronts? I recently explored these questions with my friend and colleague Dr. Amy Agigian, CWHHR’s founder and director.

Gaia Time mixed media collage on paper  7″x 11″  Elena Stone

Dr. Agigian reminded me that the term reproductive justice was first used by African American women in the 1990s. Women of color, marginalized by a primarily white conversation around reproductive rights that focused on abortion and contraception, fought to broaden the discourse to include the right to give birth to children safely and raise them in health and dignity, concerns particularly acute for those impacted by racism and poverty.  Accordingly, SisterSong Women of Color Reproductive Justice Collective defines reproductive justice as “the human right to maintain personal bodily autonomy, have children, not have children, and parent the children we have in safe and sustainable communities.”

With its emphasis on safety and sustainability, this very definition suggests that reproductive justice and environmental justice are sisters, supporting and reinforcing one another. As Dr. Agigian notes, “There are direct repercussions on reproductive health when the environment is degraded.  Things like air pollution, lead pollution, food deserts, violence in the home and in the streets—we can usually draw a direct line to ways that these adversely affect reproductive justice.”

Indeed, in the wake of the Dobbs decision, one of the nation’s largest and most long-established  environmental organizations similarly asserted the connection between environmental and reproductive justice. Eva Hernandez-Simmons, Managing Director of the Sierra Club wrote,

“No one should ever be forced to choose between raising a child in a neighborhood with lead-tainted water, polluted air, and sweltering heat or not having a child. That is no choice at all…. Pollution and climate hazards make pregnancy and fetal development riskier, and marginalized communities are likely to have more exposure to both.”

Scar Tissue  mixed media collage on paper 9″x 7″ Elena Stone

While such interconnections may sound alarming, Dr. Agigian emphasizes that they are also cause for hope: “When people work to respect, protect and fulfill human rights at any level, it has a positive effect on the human rights ecosystem.” So, for example, when community advocacy shuts down a toxic waste incinerator in an impoverished neighborhood, it makes for cleaner air and lower asthma rates for children.  When urban agriculture turns vacant lots into flourishing vegetable gardens, chances increase for better prenatal nutrition and resulting healthier pregnancy outcomes. Conversely, when women have control over their reproductive choices and can access the health care they need, they may have more energy available to address challenges like the climate crisis as activists and concerned community members. As Dr. Agigian asserts,

“People keep fighting, that’s where the hope lies. When we fight on one front, we’re helping the whole.  If you’re working on environmental justice, you’re also contributing to reproductive justice, and vice versa.  You’re helping people gain power over their own lives, bodies, and environment.”

 

Sustainable City (detail) pastel on paper  10″x 16 1/2″ Elena Stone

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About the art: “Gaia Time” pays tribute to the Gaia hypothesis, the theory, named for the ancient Greek goddess of the earth, that Earth and its biological systems behave as a huge single entity…that keeps the conditions on the planet within boundaries that are favorable to life. It was a startling coincidence to see the news while in the middle of writing this post that James Lovelock, the originator (along with the late Lynn Margulis) of the theory had died that very morning. The piece centers a curvaceous form as big as the sky rising over a landscape that evokes women’s creativity and labor in the form of a colorful patchwork adorned with lace and sequins. The word “quiet” in the lower right hand corner was an accident of the collage process, but it seems fitting as a reference to an awe beyond words. “Scar Tissue” is about resilience and healing.  Buttons and lace suggest the work of women’s hands, and once again hints at a rounded feminine form. The piece is meant to evoke the potential for struggle and pain to give birth to new layers of beauty even as the scars remain.  “Sustainable City”, part of an old larger piece that I’m revising, offers a bounty of voluptuous apple  shapes that speak of nurturance and juiciness.

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