Reproductive Rights Are Under Attack. Climate Change Will Make It Worse.

In the wake of ruling to overturn Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court quietly limited the EPA’s power to combat climate change with their decision in West Virginia v. EPA. The decision prevents a nationwide cap on carbon emissions, allowing states with extractive industries and massive carbon outputs to go under-regulated. So, just as the court has paved the way for states to deny essential reproductive health care, it has also cemented the country’s position as one of the biggest contributors to climate change in the world.

These two cases are more connected than you may think.

Climate change, and the inevitable mass migration it has already unleashed, heightens the need for sexual and reproductive health services — the crisis is linked to higher rates of infectious diseases, gender-based violence, and disability, which all influence reproductive outcomes. Unfortunately, in the wake of natural disasters, the availability of and access to such health services is sparse or absent. When drought, floods, hurricanes, or other disasters strike, climate change strains the government’s and the humanitarian sector’s abilities to provide resources like contraception and STI testing.

As our understanding of the relationship between climate change, migration, and reproductive rights grows, it’s time we demand action that takes these intersecting harms into account.

The U.N. Refugee Agency reports that, since 2008, 21.5 million people per year have moved from one place to another due to extreme weather events caused by climate change. In the United States, natural disasters and extreme weather displaced people 1.7 million times in 2020 alone, according to research by the Internal Displacement Monitoring Center. The World Bank estimates that by 2050, there could be more than 143 million internal climate migrants across Sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia, and Latin America, and that 30 million more will head to the U.S. border due to extreme weather events caused by climate change.

Worse still, decisions like West Virginia v. EPA prove that one of the world’s biggest polluters shows no signs of slowing down to mitigate this trend. By stifling the government’s authority to meaningfully regulate pollution in the U.S., the court ensures that climate-related natural disasters and extreme weather, which displace millions annually, will persist.

Movement induced by the effects of climate change, known as “climate migration,” can be forced or voluntary. It can arise from the sudden effects of the climate crisis, such as extreme weather, or slow effects like drought and rising sea levels. Climate migration is also influenced by factors like age, gender, ability, wealth, health, and education. No matter how you slice it, such migration is on the rise as countries like the U.S. continue to roll back regulations on an already unbridled energy sector.

Climate migration is a relatively new concept in international law, but some countries are already recognizing “environmentally displaced” persons and the rights they are entitled to. In France, a Bangladeshi migrant who migrated after the effects of air pollution caused him severe respiratory issues became the first “environmentally displaced” person in the country. In New Zealand, the case of a Tuvaluan man led the U.N. Human Rights Committee to declare that migrants should not be returned to their country of origin if their life is at risk due to the effects of climate change.

These decisions are not binding in the U.S., but they represent a shift in the international community toward recognizing how climate change influences migration and human rights.

However, the cases are not emblematic of the experience of an average climate migrant. These cases have established important precedents, but it is women, gender-diverse people, and people of color who bear the brunt of the risks and vulnerabilities associated with climate migration. And the impacts on their sexual and reproductive health are already especially devastating.

Simply put, globally, climate change creates migration, migration creates conditions of exposure to infectious diseases and violence, and women and girls are most vulnerable to this exposure due to gender inequalities.

Depending on the type of climate hazard a person experiences, and the resulting type of climate migration they face, there can be grave implications for sexual and reproductive health. For example, a 2020 study published in the journal Environmental Research Letters that compiled results from 45 different research settings found that migration due to climate events led to higher rates of HIV/AIDS, sexually transmitted diseases, infectious diseases, depression, and disability.

As the need for sexual and reproductive health care rises, migrants face obstacles to accessing essential health care like abortion. One study by MSI Reproductive Choices, a global organization that supports reproductive rights, found that, since 2011, 11.5 million women have lost access to contraception and abortion due to climate effects in 26 countries. The same research shows that if this rate continues, 14 million more women will lose access to contraception and abortion by 2030 as a result of climate migration. This, the study says, would result in 6.2 million unintended pregnancies, 2.1 million unsafe abortions, and 5,800 lives lost.

In another study, published by Frontiers in Global Women’s Health, researchers found that people who are moving due to the effects of climate change have reduced rates of STI screenings and are less likely to receive adequate pre- and post-natal care. There is also evidence suggesting that pollutants that drive climate change, like coal ash, cause reproductive issues because of the chemicals they contain, resulting in a heightened need for artificial reproductive technology. On top of this, studies show that the effects of climate change — heat waves, new infectious diseases, malnourishment, and air pollution — can lead to birth complications and higher rates of infant and maternal mortality.

Attorneys and advocates have a vital role to play in tackling the devastating impacts of this intersectional issue. Immigration attorneys can take on clients who face coinciding forms of discrimination and begin integrating a climate justice lens into their work. For example, in the provisions of Violence Against Women Act petitions — U Visa applications for survivors of crimes or abuse, T Visa applications for survivors of trafficking, and asylum applications — attorneys can begin to include factors related to climate change that may heighten a petitioner’s vulnerabilities or risks.

International institutions must do their part to address this emerging issue as well. The committees and experts who monitor the implementation of international human rights treaties, known as the U.N. Treaty Bodies and Special Procedures mechanisms, can begin exploring this relationship in their general comments and country visits.

For example, in its forthcoming General Comment on health, the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination could address the fact that the risks of pre-term birth and low birth weights are disproportionately higher for Black women due to increased rates of pollution and heat wave exposure. This is because social determinants of health like where someone lives, their occupation, and their exposure to pollutants are linked to racial inequalities.

As governments institute, en masse, restrictions on reproductive health care and allow the energy sector to continue without meaningful regulation, lawyers, students, academics, and policymakers must respond with an intersectional approach. And as scholars begin to clarify the definition of climate migration and its causes, those who experience the adverse impacts of this nexus can be recognized and better supported.

We need a definition of climate migration that is flexible and agile enough to account for the divergent experiences of so many people. To build a future where everyone has access to sexual and reproductive health services, and in which women’s lives — and livelihoods — are protected from climate change, we need our research and advocacy to explicitly make this link.