ABSTRACT
This chapter uses feminist disability studies and reproductive justice lenses to investigate interwoven histories of reproductive oppression and to frame shared approaches to contemporary abortion debates. In the wake of the 2016 US presidential election, emboldened conservative activists have increased pressure to ban abortions, close clinics and curtail access to birth control and reproductive health care. As part of this restrictive mobilisation, selective termination based upon pre-natal screening for Down syndrome has taken centre stage. In 2018, several states, including Ohio, Missouri, Pennsylvania, Utah and Kentucky, pursued legislation, banning such abortions, and adopting strategies that actively appropriate disability rights arguments to curtail legal access to abortion. This chapter intervenes in these contemporary political debates by situating them within shared historical legacies of racial and disability discrimination in reproductive domains—from the reproductive control and violence of slavery to eugenic sterilisation programmes, especially those targeting women of colour and women with disabilities. This chapter argues that these histories are crucial to framing an intersectional disability politics of reproductive justice, one that critically examines neo-eugenic beliefs, not to condemn individual reproductive decisions—which are inherently complex and highly contextual—but to suggest a shared approach to expanding reproductive freedom.
(disability, reproductive justice, abortion, pre-natal screening, eugenics/neo-eugenics, Down syndrome)
