REPRODUCTIVE JUSTICE AND THE CLIMATE EMERGENCY IN THE UK
Wen and Birth Companions have published a paper looking at the implications of the climate emergency for reproductive justice in the UK.
Climate change, global heating, pollution, exposure to toxic chemicals, environmental degradation and the decline of nature – referred to collectively as the climate and biodiversity emergency – pose severe challenges to reproductive, maternal, infant and child health. In the UK, we are already seeing the significant impacts of the climate emergency on women’s ability to conceive; sustain healthy pregnancies; and birth and parent their children in safety and health. We also know that women facing poverty, inequality and disadvantage, and those from Black and Brown communities disproportionately bear the impacts of these factors.
Developed by Black and Indigenous women in the US in the 1990s, the reproductive justice framework provides an invaluable lens through which to understand and address the climate and biodiversity emergency. Reproductive justice centres around four core human rights: the right to bodily autonomy; the right to have children; the right to not have children; and the right to parent the children we have with dignity in safe and sustainable communities (SisterSong, 2023).
This paper adds to the Feminist Green New Deal (FGND) policy paper series developed by Wen and the Women’s Budget Group, using the framework of reproductive justice to interrogate specific challenges brought about by the climate emergency, and demonstrate the myriad ways in which the climate emergency undermines our rights.
Read the press release
WHAT IS REPRODUCTIVE JUSTICE?
Developed by Black and Indigenous women in the US in the 1990s, the reproductive justice framework provides an invaluable lens through which to understand and address the climate and biodiversity emergency.
The reproductive justice framework centres around four core human rights:
- The right to bodily autonomy
- The right to have children
- The right to not have children
- The right to parent the children we have with dignity in safe and sustainable communities.
HOW TO GET INVOLVED
- Support campaigns and initiatives that focus on the intersection of reproductive justice and the climate emergency, including:
- Wen’s Environmenstrual and Green Baby campaigns;
- Global Black Maternal Health’s Black Child, Clean Air campaign;
- The Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists’ Women’s Voices Involvement Panel.
- Join Birth Companions, Wen and the Women’s Budget Group (WBG) in supporting the Feminist Green New Deal (FGND)’s roadmap to a sustainable and equal UK economy.
- Advocate for the addition of a commitment to reproductive justice in other key policy initiatives relating to the climate emergency.
- Review and improve individual organisational policy and practice on sustainability.
- Join together to organise and campaign across the women’s and health sectors on environmental issues.
Read the Feminist Green New Deal Policy Papers
