What’s in the World Is in the Womb: Converging Environmental and Reproductive Justice through Synecdoche

This article examines the efforts of biologist Sandra Steingraber to promote the rights of the fetus in an environmental human rights context. Rather than dismiss Steingraber’s rhetoric as antifeminist, it posits that synecdoche enables her to simultaneously promote fetal protection and reproductive justice. In framing the maternal body and fetuses as synecdochical representations of the larger environment, Steingraber exposes the interconnectedness between human and nature, and reveals how protecting the maternal body and fetus from environmental toxins necessitates regulation of toxins in the environment. The author of this article argues that synecdoche is a rhetorical practice activists can use to transcend dichotomies, overcome the obstacles of toxins’ ubiquity and banality, and converge environmental and reproductive justice.