| The Womb Issue
Words | Arielle Gonzales
“We’re dying from inhaling the industries’ pollution. I feel like it’s a death sentence.” — Sharon Lavigne, St. James Parish (Human Rights Watch, 2024) The scenes are familiar across the United States, where environmental racism has long left Black and Brown communities exposed to risks that would not be tolerated for White families. Across the country, neighborhoods that are marginalized are disappearing to data centers, petrochemical corridors, and industrial facilities built close to their homes. Reproductive health is one of the most significant casualties of environmental racism. Toxins in the air shape who gets to carry a safe pregnancy, who gets to have a safe birth, and who survives it.
A medical professional in a white coat pointing to a framed anatomical diagram of the female reproductive system.
Marginalized neighborhoods do not end up on the front lines of environmental harm by chance. Their exposure is the result of systems built decades ago and still in operation today. Industrial facilities and data centers are constructed routinely in predominantly poor, Black and Brown communities, where political leverage is limited. Residents often lack the resources, legal support, or time needed to challenge the developments, allowing corporations to be approved with little opposition.
This is how structural racism embeds itself into the landscape. Zoning laws funnel pollution toward certain postcodes. Housing policies confine families to areas with higher environmental risk. Rising housing costs push those with fewer resources ever closer to highways, refineries, and industrial plants. Unequal access to healthcare then compounds the damage, placing the burden of illness, fertility complications, and long-term care on the communities most exposed to harm. These patterns are deliberate outcomes of policy choices that prioritize profit and infrastructure over human life, shaping American cities in ways that decide whose bodies are protected and whose are treated as expendable.
Environmental justice is inseparable from reproductive justice. Protecting maternal health requires confronting the systems that allow industries to operate in vulnerable communities. When pollution becomes a part of everyday life, it doesn’t just impact the air but also affects hormones, pregnancies, and people’s ability to stay healthy.
Environmental exposure is directly tied to reproductive harm outcomes, including infertility and pregnancy complications. Studies by the National Institutes of Health in 2025 directly identified that predominantly Black neighborhoods have a spike in ovarian and uterine cancer rates that are linked to nitrogen dioxide exposure. Countless studies show that industrial runoff carries heavy metals and endocrine-disrupting chemicals into water systems, interfering with the body’s hormones and affecting reproductive health. Plenty more research shows that microplastics found in the air, water, and human tissue impair fertility and increase the risk of reproductive cancers.
A mother gazing affectionately at her young baby lying down.
The result of environmental racism is clear: toxic births. Behind the science, the stats, and the studies are communities living with grief and uncertainty.
Further south, Sharon Lavigne, a longtime resident of St. James Parish in Louisiana’s petrochemical corridor, told Human Rights Watch that pollution surrounds her community and is impossible to ignore. She explained, “We’re dying from inhaling the industries’ pollution. I feel like it’s a death sentence,” a statement of her daily life shaped by environmental exposure to families in her region. Her experience shapes the border crisis in St. James Parish, where petrochemical plants, poor air quality, and long-standing environmental racism have created conditions that directly affect reproductive health.
In Louisiana’s industrial corridor known as “Cancer Alley,” a name that emerged in the 1980s in response to elevated cancer rates, families live in the shadow of towering petrochemical plants built alongside their neighborhoods. Residents describe mornings when the air smells like burnt plastic, a heaviness that makes breathing difficult and settles in again by evening, as parents worry about what their children are inhaling.
These lived experiences echo documented research. Human Rights Watch has reported higher rates of preterm births in parishes surrounded by petrochemical pollution, while The Guardian has identified low birthweight as an ongoing public health crisis across the “85-mile-long Cancer Alley” area.
A hazy, black-and-white view of a sprawling industrial refinery or chemical plant with a large bridge in the background.
In a contemporary echo of the “Cancer Alley” of the 1980s, communities today are beginning to warn of emerging “digital cancer alleys,” clusters of pollution forming around AI data centers that power the digital economy. While these facilities are often framed as clean or invisible infrastructure, residents living nearby describe a different reality.
In Louisiana, a newly built AI data center in the New Orleans area has raised concerns over nitrogen dioxide emissions, prompting locals to draw direct comparisons to the petrochemical corridors that came before it. These data centers may fuel cloud computing and artificial intelligence, but they also produce what residents describe as toxic air. Pollution that lingers in surrounding neighborhoods.
“But when I open up that window, I smell everything but the right thing and the right thing is the clean air,”—Easter May Knox, Memphis resident (CNBC, 2025)
Similar fears have surfaced hundreds of miles away in South Memphis, where residents have organized against pollution tied to data infrastructure and industrial activity. “When I open up that window, I smell everything but the right thing—and the right thing is clean air,” said Easter May Knox, a Memphis resident, in an interview with CNBC.
In South Memphis, neighbors gather outside community centers and in church pews as the organization Memphis Community Against Pollution pushes for public hearings and stronger environmental protections. Parents speak about the air their children breathe, while residents exchange stories of illness and loss.
Justice isn’t just conceptual. It requires clean air, safe water, and the right to healthy births. Until communities like South Memphis receive protection, the air will remain heavy, and the ongoing crisis will persist even as residents fight for where their children can grow up without bearing the burden of pollution.
By clicking “submit,” you agree to receive emails from TrooRa and accept our web terms of use and privacy and cookie policy. *Terms apply.
©2018 -2025 – TrooRa is a registered trademark of Rare Luxury Living LLC TrooRa Magazine, A Fortunest Group and is registered with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.
By clicking “submit,” you agree to receive emails from TrooRa and accept our web terms of use and privacy and cookie policy. *Terms apply.
©2018 -2025 – TrooRa is a registered trademark of Rare Luxury Living LLC TrooRa Magazine, A Fortunest Group and is registered with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.
Explore diverse creators, authentic stories, and bold ideas. Login to access TrooRa’s vibrant world of inspiration.
Not a member yet? Register Now
Tier-3 User Trying to View Tier 4 Content
Tier-2 User Trying to View Tier 3 + 4 Content
Tier-1 “Free Member Limit Reached”
Free Member Trying to View Paid (Tier 2+) Content
Guest Trying to View Premium (Tier 1+) Content
Tier-0 “Free View Limit Reached”
