The Feminist Student Union held a discussion about reproductive and environmental justice Monday in the Women’s Center.

“About 30 people came and took part in the discussion and most of them were students,” MU sophomore and discussion leader Ashley Wineland said.

Wineland based the discussion on a conference she participated in.

“What I did is follow the conference and hope people can take actions after this discussion,” she said.

The two issues, reproductive justice and environmental justice, sound quite different and separate, but they are actually related to each other, Wineland said.

“Reproductive justice is about the resources, having children or not and so on,” she said. “The environmental justice is about the environmental problems people might face or could happen in the future.”

Wineland said that when there is large population growth, we consume a lot of resources and this may cause harm to the environment with the weather changing and toxins in the water.

With so many people joining in, the most meaningful thing the discussion did was to open dialogue and let people talk about the issues together, Wineland said.

“I think people can learn something from the discussion, come out with different perspectives and think critically,” she said. “Maybe some of them can do something and get involved in the issues.”

Many participants said they found the discussion enlightening and informative.

“Through this discussion, I know a lot about what I didn’t know before,” freshman Cecelia Zheng said. “I found we have more responsibility to pay attention to our environment, our community and our earth.”