Womb to Waste: Climate Change’s Silent Attack on Reproductive Rights

Author: Jenna Caron

Field of Study: Social Sciences

Program Affiliation: Source Project Research Program

Faculty Mentors: Matthew Cole

Easel: 31

Timeslot: Afternoon

Abstract: Women experience disproportionate impact on the effects of climate change—they’ve proven more likely to die in a climate disaster, rely on the resources that the climate crisis devastates, and to experience gender-based violence. This study examines the reproductive health within gender-based violence, positing that women residing in economically disadvantaged countries, identifying with historically marginalized communities, and/or possessing harmful medical predispositions, experience more severe maternal and fetal health outcomes. By examining data and academic literature through biomedical and biological studies of sexual violence, birth rates, climate-related stressors, and harmful pollutants, this study concludes a strong connection between climate-related weather conditions and a depreciation in women’s reproductive justice. Through this, one can understand the effects of environmental degradation on access to reproductive resources, and gendered struggles in the climate crisis. Climate change can thereafter be understood as a consequential women’s health crisis, inspiring female-centered solutions to climate justice.