Yale

The same party that protects lives and makes children proud first is pushing what Congress calls “a large bill.” The bill narrowly passed houses in May and is now considering the Senate, which not only makes it easier to expand the expansion of fossil fuel actions, making it necessary for people to raise the environment they need to raise children in the first place.

The bill violates the basis of reproductive rights defined by organizations like Sistersong. Reproductive justice involves not only the right to have or have children. It's also about the right to raise these children in a safe, healthy and sustainable community.

What future will we offer when air pollution is the second-biggest killer for children under five in the world? Moreover, there is growing evidence that exposure to exhaust smoke can harm reproductive health. Just living on a busy street means inhaling harmful air pollution. Exposure to fossil fuel by-products is associated with infertility and miscarriage.

As a middle school teacher, I would be as scared as my life would be when my students reach my age. I watched them try to focus on mathematics and science, and the world they inherited was actively burning down by those in power. They should be better than this.

Under the proposed legislation, the methane fee, established in 2022, aims to curb one of the most effective climate-temperature gases, will be suspended for 10 years, meaning polluters don’t have to worry about not being able to pay until 2035. It was a decade of inaction, and the world race was heading for a breakthrough point. According to the intergovernmental climate change panel, we have six years at emission levels in 2024 before global temperatures may exceed 1.5°C — although some scientists believe we have crossed that threshold. It seems like 1.5°C is not shocking enough, and every tenth of the increase increases the risk of catastrophic flooding, drought and wildfires.

The regulations that deprive the Environmental Protection Agency of the Environment Protection Agency are not enough to accommodate this government. After the agency's leadership publicly mocked climate science, the new bill now proposes allowing gas pipeline developers to fully allow the environment if they bear $10 million in fees. Meanwhile, the bill calls for cuts in Medicaid, the program supports about 20% of Americans and covers more than 40% of births and prenatal and postnatal care in the country. In short, the government is depriving health care from families while subsidizing polluters.

We have not only lost environmental protection. We are losing our lives. That's not beautiful. This is cruel.

With lawmakers suddenly so concerned about the birth rate in the United States, Vice President JD Vance announced that he “want more babies in the United States of America” and maybe they should focus on making sure there is a world worth bringing children to.

Natalia Arcos Cano is an educational and public voice researcher at the National Latino Reproductive Justice Institute and the OPED program of the Every Page Foundation.