2024-05-23 13:00
1:00
May 23, 2024
afternoon
Historically, the disability and reproductive rights movements operated separately and, as one activist put it, “ignored each other,” pursuing goals that sometimes felt contradictory: While one movement fought for full access to abortion, the other called for people to stop terminating pregnancies if a disability was found. A new House resolution announced Thursday by Rep. Ayanna Pressley highlights the shift in the relationship between the two movements, spurred by the repeal of federal abortion rights and a growing recognition of their common ground: bodily autonomy and self-determination.
Reproductive and disability rights and justice activists were scheduled to join Rep. Pressley, D-Massachusetts, in unveiling the Disability Reproductive Equality Act outside the U.S. Capitol. The resolution would establish Disability Reproductive Equality Day each May to highlight the unmet reproductive health needs of the disability community.
“Disability justice is reproductive justice, and you can’t have one without the other, and I’m proud to work with advocates from all walks of life to introduce this necessary, interrelated legislation,” Pressley said in exclusive comments to The 19th.
A corresponding resolution has been introduced by Democratic Sen. Tammy Duckworth of Illinois and Democratic Sen. Patty Murray of Washington state.
“I am proud to introduce this resolution alongside Senator Murray and Representative Pressley to ensure that all of us in the disability community are cared for and are not denied access to the reproductive health care we need,” Duckworth told The 19th.
The introduction of the resolution itself is not necessarily groundbreaking; if passed, it would not result in any policy change regarding access to reproductive health care for people with disabilities. What is noteworthy is the coalition of disability and reproductive rights and justice organizations that co-authored the resolution with Pressley, Duckworth, and Murray.
Mia Ives Rubley, director of disability justice initiatives at the left-leaning Center for American Progress, said Thursday’s rally was the culmination of years of work by many activists trying to get beyond disability and reproductive rights groups “just ignoring each other.”
“This is the first time we’ve had this kind of event,” she said.
Ives-Ruby credits her progressive, broad-based disability activism to her predecessor, Rebecca Cokley, who founded the Disability Justice Initiative at the Center for American Progress in 2018 and will speak at the event. Cokley now leads the U.S. Disability Rights Program at the Ford Foundation.
“Rebecca Cokley started a dialogue between the disability community and the reproductive community,” Ives-Rublee said.
It’s not just center-left and progressive disability groups that are now placing more emphasis on reproductive rights and justice. The American Association of People with Disabilities (AAPD), one of the largest groups representing the interests of Americans with disabilities, has a history of nonpartisanship and has traditionally avoided public comment on abortion policy. Former Senator and lifelong conservative Bob Dole was one of the driving forces behind the founding of AAPD, along with Democrats like former Representative Tony Coelho.
Maria Town, the group’s current president, said being nonpartisan isn’t the only reason they’ve remained silent on abortion and other reproductive issues.
“There is a very large pro-life segment of the disability community,” Town said, highlighting the Down syndrome and developmental disability communities in particular, and raising concerns about so-called “disability selective abortions” — the decision to terminate a fetus based on a prenatal diagnosis.
Down syndrome is a condition caused by an extra copy of the 21st chromosome. People with Down syndrome usually have intellectual disabilities and distinctive facial features, such as almond-shaped eyes. They are more likely to have heart, digestive and hearing problems, and to develop dementia later in life. Many people with Down syndrome are employed, married and lead fulfilling lives.
Down syndrome is easily detectable prenatally and testing is routine in developed countries, resulting in a high rate of abortions due to the condition. The lack of a centralized, socialized health care system in the United States makes it more difficult to estimate abortion rates due to Down syndrome than in some European countries. Recent systematic studies place the abortion rate in the United States at between 67 and 85 percent.
“I think it’s very hard to find someone with Down syndrome who supports abortion rights,” Town said, noting that anti-abortion events like the March for Life often feature messaging about people with Down syndrome and other disabilities that can be detected in the womb. The AAPD represents a broad coalition, so it chose to remain silent in part out of respect for that. And because no polls were conducted, it was hard to know what the majority opinion of the disability community actually was.
That all changed in 2022 when the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. The AAPD was the first to speak out against the decision, issuing its first statement on abortion rights. More statements followed, Towne noted, and several prominent developmental and intellectual disability organizations followed the AAPD’s lead. The dam broke.
“What we really focused on is the fact that a core principle of the disability rights movement is bodily autonomy and the right to self-determination. And core to these ideas is the right to safe and accessible reproductive health care, and that includes abortion,” Towne said.
Ives-Ruble and Towne attribute the changes in many disability groups, including their own, to the increased presence of women in disability leadership.
“A lot of organizations within the disability community really relied on the belief that disability was a bipartisan issue and that both Republicans and Democrats could work together to address issues that affected people with disabilities. These organizations were primarily led by white men,” Ives-Rubree said.
At AAPD, Towne attributes its decision to take a stand on abortion rights in part to the leadership of the late disability rights icon Judy Heumann, who served as AAPD’s executive director until her death last year.
“If she hadn’t been on the board, that probably wouldn’t have happened, but she played a big role in making sure that statement came to fruition and I remain grateful to her for that,” Town said.
Disability groups aren’t the only groups that broadly support some form of legal abortion. In 2022, shortly after the court ruling ending federal abortion rights was leaked, the left-leaning polling firm Data for Progress conducted its first poll asking disabled people about their thoughts on abortion. It found that half of both disabled and able-bodied people believe abortion should remain legal in most circumstances.
Because Data for Progress uses online-only surveys, it may not fully represent the entire disability community, but only those who can and would respond to an online survey. For example, people with limited access to the internet, such as those with Down Syndrome or other intellectual disabilities, or those who are illiterate, may be excluded from the survey. However, it is important to note that in traditional surveys, these demographics may also be excluded, and it is difficult to calculate exactly how many people are excluded.
A new Data for Progress poll on the issue, commissioned by the Center for American Progress and provided exclusively to The 19th ahead of its release on Thursday, shows similar results, although the questions are not similar enough to be comparable to the 2022 poll. Opinions on abortion among people without and with disabilities remain roughly similar: 61% of non-disabled respondents and 55% of disabled respondents said they believe abortion should be legal in most cases.
The latest poll also found that disabled and able-bodied people agree on many other issues, from fertility treatments to birth control to guardianship decisions about reproductive autonomy. For example, when it comes to in vitro fertilization, a type of fertility treatment that has recently come under fire from some conservatives, 83 percent of able-bodied people and 79 percent of disabled people believe IVF should be legal.
“The vast majority of people with disabilities support access to abortion and support being able to make their own choices regarding reproductive rights and justice,” Ives-Rubree said.
While the resolution is unlikely to pass the Republican-controlled House of Representatives, disability advocates are optimistic about the future of the resolution and its partnership with reproductive rights and justice groups.
“I want people to understand that there is an incredible overlap between the desire for bodily independence for people with disabilities and the work that women and non-binary people have been doing around bodily independence. [in the reproductive rights and justice movements]”And I think there’s a lot of overlap. The core of the job is building and maintaining those bridges,” Ives-Rubry said.
Note: The Ford Foundation is a financial supporter of The 19th.