Feminists Claim Abortion Necessary to Fight Global Warming

By Alexis I. Fragosa, Esq. | November 4, 2021

WASHINGTON, DC, November 5 (C-Fam) Feminist and family planning NGOs are encouraging the use of “voluntary family planning” as a “cost-effective solution” to slow population growth and mitigate the effects of climate change.

Citing the disproportionate impact of climate change on women and girls, the Women and Gender Constituency, demanded that governments participating in 26th UN Climate Change Conference of the Parties (COP26) invest in “gender-just climate action, gender-transformative climate education, and health. . .,” including sexual and reproductive health rights.

After being excluded from the 2015 UN Climate Summit in Paris, international abortion advocates and family planning NGOs are eager to impact the 26th climate change conference and obtain their share of the billions of dollars they expect to be committed by governments and companies.

The pro-abortion coalition Women Deliver and the UN Population Fund have called for the advancement of sexual and reproductive health rights to ensure “climate adaptation and resilience” for women and girls, claiming that climate-related diseases, heat stress, and food insecurity impact not only maternal health, but also increase vulnerability to gender-based violence.

“To realize the vision of a gender-equal world, we need to identify and address how interconnected climate change issues and the health and rights of girls and women are,” said Divya Mathew of Women Deliver, a member of the Constituency, in a press release.

Not wanting to appear like vanguards of population control, feminist activists claim that “contraception should not be seen as a strategy for climate change mitigation. . .,” instead they assert that it should be used as a tool to increase “resilience” to climate change and help affected populations adapt. It is not clear what this means.

Women Deliver published an evidence review in advance of the conference, asserting a “clear and quantifiable” link between population growth and climate change. Relying upon Project Drawdown and other research, it claimed that “voluntary family planning to slow population growth” that follows “a rights-based approach” and is “implemented in culturally appropriate ways, is a cost-effective solution to reduce greenhouse gases.”

The UN Population Fund argues quite plausibly that drought and climate change disrupt livelihoods, especially in farming communities, increasing the economic uncertainty of already impoverished individuals and families. However, instead of providing much needed funds to improve access to food and water, as well as healthcare infrastructure, the UN Population Fund proposes an increase in funding for family planning to combat the effects of climate change.

The strategy proposed by the UN Population Fund and family planning NGOs also relies upon the notion that women in developing nations have an “unmet need” for family planning. Yet, only about 5% of “unmet need” can be attributed to cost or access issues. Therefore, notwithstanding such claims, it is unlikely that by simply providing access to UN-style family planning that women, who have already rejected contraception as a matter of choice, will voluntarily limit the number of children they will bear to increase their resilience to climate change.

Incidentally, UNFPA’s latest claims about climate change mitigation are a departure from previous UN publications, which found that population policies have little impact on carbon emissions, compared to other strategies, like changes in production and consumption, and sound environmental policy. In fact, John Wilmoth, Director of the UN Population Division, criticized climate change advocates for relying upon flawed science to link population to anthropogenic global warming.

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