Climate Action
Stripping the EPA’s Ability to Regulate Emissions is Anti-Life
August 28, 2025
OPINION
I grew up attending Catholic private schools, marching for life, and even advocating for pro-life beliefs in conversations with Virginia delegates. I know what it means to stand up for the sanctity of life, to believe that every human being has inherent dignity from conception to natural death.
But in all those conversations about protecting life, I rarely heard anyone mention the air we breathe, the water we drink, or the planet we leave behind. That needs to change. Many pro-lifers fight to protect life, but what will happen if the planet is no longer able to support it?
Abortion still dominates the conversation, despite the fact that climate change threatens the exact lives that pro-lifers are trying to protect. Shouldn’t the goal of respecting and conserving life be equally centered on preserving the environment?
If we are truly pro-life, we must also be pro-environment.
Recently, President Donald Trump announced his plan to revoke the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) authority to take action on climate change. This move isn’t just about bureaucracy or regulations, it’s about dismantling one of the few agencies tasked with protecting the health of millions of Americans. Climate change isn’t some abstract issue for future generations to worry about. Its effects are already here, harming real people, right now.
Consider this: according to the World Health Organization, air pollution is responsible for an estimated 7 million premature deaths annually across the globe. In the United States alone, studies show that pollution from fossil fuel combustion is responsible for 350,000 premature deaths annually. These are not just numbers, they are lives lost to preventable causes.
If we claim to care about life, how can we turn a blind eye to policies that poison our air and water?
Babies Suffer Most
It’s not just adults who suffer. According to the National Library of Medicine, air pollution may indirectly harm lung development by causing low birth weight, early birth, or improper immune system development.
The health implications of this exposure on unborn babies is especially important as air pollution during the prenatal period may interfere with organ development and organogenesis, the critical process where organs are formed. This would not be the first time that environmental pollution had catastrophic effects on infants. In Flint, Michigan, an entire generation of children was exposed to lead-contaminated water. Even low levels of lead in blood are associated with developmental delays, difficulty learning and behavioral issues, according to the CDC. The science is clear: environmental harm directly threatens the health and development of unborn and newborn children, and adults.
Being Pro-life Shouldn’t End At Birth
When hurricanes fueled by rising sea levels destroy homes, when wildfires made more intense by climate change force families to evacuate, when rising temperatures increase the spread of diseases like West Nile Virus, these are life issues too.
In fact, the National Medical Association has called climate change “the greatest public health challenge of the 21st century.”
But it is the most vulnerable who pay the highest price. Low-income communities and communities of color are disproportionately affected by environmental degradation. The unborn, the elderly, and those with preexisting health conditions are at greatest risk. As pro-life advocates, we should be the loudest voices standing up for those who cannot protect themselves. That includes the victims of environmental injustice.
I’m not writing this from a leftist point of view. I know how quickly conversations about the environment get dismissed as partisan politics. But protecting life has no political party. When Pope Francis wrote Laudato Si’, his encyclical on the environment, he called on people of all faiths and political backgrounds to recognize that “the earth herself, burdened and laid waste, is among the most abandoned and maltreated of our poor.”
We must understand that dismantling the EPA’s ability to regulate emissions is not pro-life, it’s anti-life. Weakening environmental protections is not just about rolling back regulations; it’s about rolling back the future of every child we claim to protect.
I’m not here to argue, but to find common ground. If we are united by a belief in the sanctity of life, then we should be outraged when policies disregard the health of our children and grandchildren. Pro-life values demand consistency. You can’t defend life in one breath and support policies that threaten it in the next.
We can’t afford to be selective in our defense of life. The same passion that drives us to protect the unborn should drive us to protect the earth they will inherit. What’s the point of saving a life if we’re willing to destroy the world it lives in?
It’s time for a new kind of pro-life movement. One that sees the environment not as a political talking point, but as a sacred duty. One that understands that caring for creation is not separate from caring for life, it is the foundation of it.
So the next time a politician promises to “protect life,” we must ask: Whose life? And for how long? Because life doesn’t end at birth, and neither should our efforts.
If you agree, make your voice heard – tell the EPA we expect them to protect clean air and clean water for all living things by adding your name to our public comments urging the EPA not to revoke the Endangerment Finding, which gives the agency the authority to regulate pollution.
