Harmful, misguided myths about disability continue to shape how lawmakers, courts, and clinicians treat differently abled people. These myths keep these Americans from receiving fair treatment under the law and can put them and their families at risk.
Even when the medical condition has nothing to do with abortion rights or other controversial issues, it can prevent people from accessing the healthcare they need.
For instance, in Tennessee, a woman named Becky Hubbard was denied her rheumatoid arthritis medication because methotrexate is also used in medication abortion. According to the National Women’s Law Center, she wasn’t pregnant, but because of the state’s ban, her pharmacist refused to dispense the drug. Hubbard ultimately underwent a sterilization procedure she didn’t want just to get her medication back.
Her story is a contemporary example of how abortion bans and forced sterilization still operate under legal cover.
Disability and Reproductive Justice
As a physician, I’ve seen how reproductive healthcare sometimes ignores disability. I’ve been part of care teams supporting pregnant paraplegic patients, patients with mobility impairments, and patients with intellectual disabilities. They needed equipment, support, and respect. What they didn’t need was permission to become parents.
Today, 42 states and the District of Columbia list parental disability as grounds for terminating custody, often with no requirement to demonstrate harm. In appellate cases involving disabled pregnant people, courts upheld termination 93 percent of the time.
Disability Myths in the Guise of Law and Medical Norm
The U.S. legal system has never reckoned with its history of reproductive control over people with disabilities. The Supreme Court’s 1927 decision in Buck v. Bell upheld the forced sterilization of women with disabilities, a ruling that has never been overturned.
Today, 31 states and Washington, D.C., still allow the sterilization of disabled people, often through guardianship systems or institutional oversight. In some states, courts can approve sterilization based on IQ scores alone.
Medicine, too, is complicit. Patients with disabilities are regularly denied access to birth control options, dismissed as nonsexual, or subjected to contraceptive coercion, where providers recommend long-acting contraceptives with questionable consent. According to The Century Foundation, disabled women are often pressured to accept reproductive decisions that people tell them are made for their own good.
Abortion Bans and the Language of Protection
In recent years, disability rhetoric has been co-opted by anti-abortion lawmakers. Some state bans prohibit abortion after a prenatal diagnosis of Down syndrome or other anomalies, claiming to prevent disability-based eugenics.
However, these same states do not fund services for children with disabilities. They do not expand Medicaid. They do not support the Black Maternal Health Momnibus Act, which would reduce pregnancy-related deaths and complications for disabled and marginalized birthing people.
The goal is not to protect people with disabilities, but to limit reproductive autonomy. In reality, many disabled people, including those with chronic illness or high-risk conditions, seek abortion because pregnancy is unsafe or unsustainable. In the wake of the Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision that dismantled Roe v. Wade, millions of disabled women now live in states where abortion is banned or inaccessible.
Reality Check: People with Disabilities Get Pregnant and Become Parents
The notion that people with disabilities are unfit parents remains one of the most destructive disability myths in circulation. It informs social work assessments, custody rulings, and even well-meaning conversations about “what’s best for the child.”
But the numbers tell a different story. According to the Center for American Progress, more than 4 million U.S. parents identify as disabled. They live in cities and rural areas, work, adapt, and raise children. They also face a constant risk of family separation.
One case involves a woman named Alice Goltz, who lost custody of her newborn because her arms trembled during an evaluation. She had dystonia and a mild cognitive disability. She had never dropped her daughter or otherwise put her at risk. Still, her tremor was viewed as proof of incompetence.
These decisions often rely on predictive neglect, speculating that a disability might lead to harm, even when no harm has occurred. In contrast, parents without known disabilities are judged by their actions, not their diagnoses.
This legal asymmetry violates the spirit and letter of the Americans with Disabilities Act, but family courts have been largely immune to reform. ADA protections are often treated as secondary to child welfare, even though federal law requires accommodations in parenting plans and custody decisions.
Reproductive Justice Requires More Than Laws
The reproductive justice framework, created by Black women in the 1990s, is built on four human rights: the right to bodily autonomy, the right to have a child, the right not to have a child, and the right to raise children in safe, supported communities. Each of these rights is routinely contested, curtailed, or denied for differently abled people.
True justice means:
- Guaranteeing accessible reproductive health care, including exams, screenings, and contraception
- Providing transportation, equipment, and in-home support to help differently abled parents raise children
- Ending forced sterilization through federal legislation, not just state discretion
- Expanding Medicaid to include abortion and maternal health services
- Ensuring disabled youth receive comprehensive sex education that includes consent, protection, and pleasure
Organizations like the Disability Reproductive Equity Coalition are already developing policy platforms grounded in this vision. But we need public pressure to make legislators act—and to hold the medical profession accountable for decades of exclusion.
Ending the Double Standard
People with disabilities should not have to prove they are model patients, ideal parents, or perfect storytellers to be granted their rights. We must always fight against the idea that we have to be “good enough” to avoid sterilization, to access abortion, or to parent without state interference.
If we want to build a future where everyone’s reproductive decisions are respected, we need to confront the disability myths still driving policy. We also need to stop allowing those myths to masquerade as preventive care.
