Panel Discusses Link Between Maternal Health and Environment

Building on the theme of this year’s Women’s Week—“strength through solidarity”—a panel discussion last night held in Harvard Hall examined the link between environmental factors and reproductive health.

Billed as “mother/earth,” the event focused on the detrimental effects of pollution and other toxins on maternal health, and featured advocates for social justice Lani Blechman of Hampshire College’s Civil Liberties and Public Policy Program and Trina Jackson of Roxbury-based Alternatives for Community and Environment.

The two panelists touched on issues ranging from controlling overpopulation to placing power plants in low-income areas, which they said affected women’s reproductive health.

“Women are the first environment in which babies live,” Blechman said. “How can pregnant bodies sustain life if they collect toxins and secrete them through breast milk?”

Pernicious effects of toxins released from power plants and other sources of pollution disproportionally affect low-income populations, Jackson said, adding that landfills and other pollutants are more commonly found in poor neighborhoods.

“Toxins are linked to birth defects, miscarriages, and problems with fertility and reproduction, and women in low-income areas are disproportionately exposed to these toxins,” Jackson said.

Blechman and Jackson stressed the importance of giving low-income groups exposed to environmental toxins a say in decisions—such as power plant placement—that impact their health.

“It’s a problem when decisions are made about people who are not included in the decision,” Jackson said. “For me, the decision isn’t about whether to build a coal plant or a nuclear plant—it’s about determining what is right and what is a choice within people’s lived experience.”

Karen A. Narefsky ’11, a Students For Choice member who helped organize the event, said that she hoped the panel raised audience awareness of how environmental factors can affect women’s reproductive health.

“The environment is on people’s minds, reproductive health is on people’s minds,” Narefsky said. “This is a different angle on both of them.”

—Staff writer Alice E.M. Underwood can be reached at aeunderw@fas.harvard.edu.