Reproductive Justice & Disability Justice Are One in the Same

It is still legal to sterilize a disabled person without their consent in over 30 states in the United States. And despite the Americans with Disabilities Act barring discrimination, barriers persist in healthcare spaces that make it inaccessible to many disabled people, including costs. Even when disabled people find their way around these, many find they must constantly advocate for their healthcare providers to see them as capable of making their own choices in reproduction, pregnancy and parenting.

Bodily autonomy, self-determination, the right to have a child and the right to choose not to — these are the ideas at the core of both reproductive justice and disability justice. 

We speak with Laurie Bertram Roberts, co-founder and executive director of the Mississippi Reproductive Freedom Fund and Rebecca Cokley, Program Officer for U.S. Disability Rights at the Ford Foundation.