This commentary is by Justin Mark Hideaki Salisbury of Burlington, a graduate student in education at the University of Vermont. He has worked as a design laboratory assistant, economic research fellow, therapist, legislative aide and teacher.
On Nov. 8, Vermont voters will decide whether to support Article 22, a reproductive liberty amendment, which is touted as enshrining current Vermont reproductive laws in the Vermont Constitution.
It goes further, in a good way. I am a blind person, an active disability rights advocate, and an active advocate for reproductive rights.
Many anti-choice advocates have gained the ears of many disability rights advocates and converted many disability rights advocates into anti-choice advocates. Frequently, the logic goes something like this: Pregnant people will not want to have a disabled child, so they would rather kill it than have it live with a disability, since they think disabled people are better off dead. You should oppose abortion because it helps them kill disabled babies.
I disagree with this logic. I disagree that we are better off dead. I also disagree that restricting a person’s reproductive liberty enhances disability rights.
Disabled people often experience much less bodily autonomy than our nondisabled peers. Frequently, people put their hands on us when they should not. Nondisabled people are also often less willing to listen to us when we try to communicate about something that is happening with our own bodies. In other words, we are not perceived as credible to know what is going on with our own bodies.
One of the more triggering topics when discussing bodily autonomy is, of course, the fact that we are disproportionately targeted for sexual violence. Sexual violence is a crime of power and control; for those who crave power and control, disabled people are exciting targets.
Furthermore, people who crave this power and control often seek positions of power over people with disabilities, such as jobs providing services to us. When the foxes are often guarding the henhouses, it is essential that we have every mechanism for bodily autonomy at our disposal.
Does restricting reproductive liberty actually address ableism? I’m not so sure that it does. In states that have banned abortion, did all the disabled job applicants start getting interviews? No. Did all the stairs turn into wheelchair ramps? No. Did all the print books turn into Braille? No.
What disabled people — and everyone else — really need is to dismantle ableism. Rather than try to make it illegal for a person to abort a potentially disabled fetus, we need to change the way that disability is considered to be a bad thing and break down the socially constructed barriers associated with disability. Then, once disabilities are considered ordinary characteristics, the idea of having a disabled child will not prompt the emotions that often lead to abortions.
Dismantling ableism will more broadly help other minorities because ableism is weaponized in the construction of racism, sexism, and other systems of oppression. If we dissolve the weapon, nobody can be harmed by it.
Disabled and nondisabled people should have equal access to programs and services. In reproductive health care, this means that disabled people need to have equal access to the physical and digital environments that patients must navigate. This need for accessibility also applies to every form and every sign-in system at every doctor’s office.
Sex education programs need to be made accessible to people with disabilities. Service providers in these public health and health care environments should also intentionally hire disabled employees. Only once in my life have I encountered a disabled person working in the provision of my health care, and it meant so much to me. It needs to be widespread. We have been kept out too long.
Reproductive rights advocates and disability rights advocates have been at odds for too long. I have applied for jobs in reproductive health care systems, sexual violence prevention education, and reproductive rights advocacy. I have never interviewed in this area. I may just not be a good fit, but some disabled people must be a good fit.
To the reproductive rights advocates: Please go out of your way to meet with disability rights leaders to see how your organizations can embrace disability rights principles in your practices. Hire some disabled employees. Organizationally divest from supply chains that pay subminimum wages to workers with disabilities.
In Vermont, it is still explicitly legal to involuntarily sterilize a disabled person, and it still happens. If Article 22, the Reproductive Liberty Amendment, passes this November, it will protect all Vermonters’ rights to choose or refuse sterilization. I suspect that the current laws allowing involuntary sterilization will become unconstitutional.
Since efforts to ban involuntary sterilization have stalled in the Vermont State Legislature, Article 22 will create a new venue for disabled people to challenge involuntary sterilization.
Disabled Vermonters do not have the right to have children. As we establish a culture of allowing people to make our own reproductive decisions, this will bring progress. This is still not covered in Article 22, but we are getting closer. We want the right to have children here in Vermont, just like the disabled people in many other states. We are tired of social workers and family courts telling us that we are not human enough to be parents. Disabled people want reproductive liberty.
