Flora Ellis’ mother keeps a stash of emergency contraception in a closet in their Oklahoma home. Even the 20-year-old Ellis herself admits that, but it’s not just because she’s a “cool mom.” Ellis was born with a connective tissue disorder that prevents her body from properly producing collagen. Not only does it limit her movement and make her prone to frequent injuries, but it also puts her organs at risk of rupturing if she becomes pregnant.
Abortion is banned in Oklahoma, so neither Ellis nor her mother want to take any chances. Ellis’ health issues mean she can’t use some forms of birth control, so the copious amounts of emergency contraception serve as extra insurance. “The thought that access to abortion might be limited makes me really nervous,” she said. [to abortion] “For now,” Ellis says.
Ellis’ mother, Cynthia Rogers, searches through her medicine cabinet for emergency pills that she keeps for Ellis and her friends in case of an emergency. Morgan Lieberman
Ellis and her boyfriend, Guthrie. The two lived together for a short time, but Ellis recently moved back home to attend college. Morgan Lieberman
Ellis and her family in front of their home. Ellis has Ehlers-Danlos syndrome, which means she often uses a wheelchair. “If there’s a prosthesis for you, I probably have one,” she said. Morgan Lieberman
The repeal of Roe v. Wade and the subsequent wave of abortion bans and restrictions in U.S. states have a significant impact on people with disabilities, who are estimated to make up about 26% of U.S. adults. Pregnancy is risky for anyone, but people who become pregnant while suffering from underlying medical conditions are at even greater risk, says Dr. Louise Perkins King, assistant professor of obstetrics, gynecology, and reproductive biology at Harvard Medical School. Ensuring access to essential health care for everyone, including people with disabilities, requires ensuring “the option to have an abortion when it is healthier for them,” says Dr. Perkins King.
Moreover, abortion bans pose a threat to bodily autonomy, “a core principle of the disability rights movement,” the American Association of People with Disabilities (AAPD) said in a statement after a draft of the Supreme Court’s decision overturning Roe was leaked last May. “Policies that restrict access to abortion would significantly exacerbate threats to the autonomy, health, and overall well-being of people with disabilities.”
Since then, 12 states have imposed near-total abortion bans, including in the South, where some of the nation’s highest rates of disabilities are located. Joy Moonan, a Texas-based disability advocate and attorney for people with cerebral palsy, said these laws only exacerbate long-standing barriers to abortion care for people with disabilities.
Joy Moonan stands next to her apartment in Dallas on July 20, 2022. Moonan, an attorney and disability rights advocate, uses a wheelchair because of cerebral palsy. By Morgan Lieberman
Even getting reliable transportation to a health care provider that performs abortions can be difficult for people with disabilities, Moonan said, and many health care providers aren’t familiar with caring for people with disabilities. In 2022, Sens. Tammy Duckworth and Patty Murray introduced legislation that would aim to alleviate the problem by funding training programs for health care providers and recruiting more people with disabilities into the medical field, but it has not progressed since it was introduced.
“Disabled people have sex, they want to have families, they want to date,” Moonan said, but “people don’t see disabled people in that way.”
Moonan and her twin sister, Laura, go out to dinner in a wheelchair-accessible van. Morgan Lieberman
Joy and Laura Moonan in their shared apartment. Morgan Lieberman
In fact, the United States has a terrible record when it comes to providing ethical care for people with disabilities: forced sterilization was common for much of the 20th century, and many states still have laws allowing it.
Wanda Felty learned this reality after her daughter, Kayla, was born. Her brain was not fully formed in the womb, leaving her with significant cognitive and visual impairments. When Kayla, now 34, was young, well-meaning people encouraged Felty to consider having her daughter’s uterus removed as a precaution for pregnancy, because sexual violence against people with disabilities is common. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, about 40% of women who are raped have a disability at the time of the assault.
Felty was shocked and angered that someone would suggest removing parts of her daughter’s body without medical necessity — feelings that came back to haunt her after the Roe loss last year. Felty, who lives in Oklahoma, works for an organization that supports people with disabilities and their families. After Oklahoma banned abortion, she began fielding calls from desperate parents wanting to learn about sterilizing their children with disabilities, and her anger returned.
Wanda Felty sits with her daughter, Kayla, at their home in Norman, Oklahoma, on July 19, 2022. Kayla’s brain was not fully formed in the womb, she is mostly non-verbal, severely visually impaired and has a number of other health issues. Felty and her husband are Kayla’s primary caregivers. Morgan Lieberman
Felty was raised to believe abortion was wrong, but her experiences have changed her views. She is outraged that lawmakers in some states have taken away abortion options, forcing families to make heartbreaking choices to protect their children. “We’ve taken away our rights,” she said. [instead of] It protects them from violent crimes,” she said.
Most abortion bans contain narrow exceptions, such as for victims of rape or incest or for medical emergencies that endanger the life of a parent, but health care providers in highly regulated states may be hesitant to provide abortion care even in cases that fall under the exceptions, fearing legal, financial, or professional consequences. The medical emergency loophole can be particularly vague because it is not always clear what constitutes a “life-threatening” complication.
That scares Ellis, who, given her connective tissue disorder, “is a risk if I get pregnant. [abortion] count [as life-saving] “So,” Eris says, “or is that what happens if your uterus ruptures?”
Keely Knight in her Kansas City apartment on July 19, 2022. Knight was born with an underdeveloped heart, so hers “has to work twice as hard as an average heart.” Morgan Lieberman
Keely Knight, 24, has similar concerns. She was born with an underdeveloped heart and has known since she was a teenager that pregnancy and childbirth could put a deadly strain on her cardiovascular system. She has long used an IUD for birth control and recently moved with her husband from Oklahoma to Kansas City, Missouri, in part because it would be easier to get an abortion if she needed it, just across the Kansas state line.
Knight said many people she knows are strongly opposed to abortion, calling it against “God’s will,” but that argument makes no sense to her.
Knight and her husband, Kael, decided to move to Kansas City to be closer to family and to have better access to reproductive resources if needed. Morgan Lieberman
Ms. Knight looks through her scrapbook. She had three open-heart surgeries as a baby and still needs to closely monitor the strain her heart is under. Morgan Lieberman
“Me and God have been fighting for my life to get to this point, and you have no idea how hard we’ve been fighting,” Knight said, “and I’m not just going to give it up just because I’m pregnant.”