A Crash Course:The Intersectionality of Disability Rights and Reproductive Freedom

by Kayla Jones

Intern, The Ruth Collective

07/01/2025

Trigger warning: This article discusses sexual assault, forced sterilization, and bigotry.



As LGBTQ+ Pride Month comes to an end, a lesser-known pride month begins on July 1st: Disability Pride. This month has been celebrated annually since July 2015, marking the 25th anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) becoming law. The fight for disability rights can be traced back to the nineteenth century. However, most people deem the monumental 504 Sit-Ins during April 1977 to be the official start of the disability rights movement, and the movement was pivotal. It laid the groundwork for the ADA in 1990 and resolutions to the IDEA Act thereafter. All mentioned legislation affirmed the rights of every disabled American to live their lives free of discrimination from all public institutions. Despite the long, hard-fought movement spanning several centuries, discrimination has existed as long as humanity has. Just like the yearly reminders of how the first LGBTQ+ Pride was a riot, I want to take the time to reflect and honor disabled history in order to celebrate disability pride properly.

Current Disability Pride flag, created by disabled writer Ann Magill

Buck v. Bell

In 1927, a Supreme Court case known as Buck v. Bell upheld the state of Virginia’s Eugenical Sterilization Act. The ruling allowed Virginia to forcibly institutionalize and sterilize Carrie Buck, a young white woman who was deemed “feeble-minded” and was impregnated via a sexually assaulter family member. Justice Holmes delivered the following statement during the hearing: “...It is better for all the world if, instead of waiting to execute degenerate offspring for crime or to let them starve for their imbecility, society can prevent those who are manifestly unfit from continuing their kind.” This ruling stoked the flames of eugenics for a whole century and counting. 

Several years down the line, Buck was proven to be a woman with “normal intelligence”, rendering her involuntary sterilization cruel and unusual in the eyes of the law. But Buck v. Bell communicated to everyone that, according to the courts, disabled or otherwise marginalized lives do not matter. Despite this ruling fading into most of humanity’s rearview mirror, the fallout on minority communities is disastrous. Over seventy thousand forced sterilizations occurred in the twentieth century alone, and it has disproportionately affected women of color. Jasmine E. Harris states in her article, Why Buck v. Bell Still Matters, “To women, people of color, those with disabilities, and those with multiple marginalized identities, however, Buck v. Bell is perennial, its principles supporting institutional racism and ableism, among other forms of systemic discrimination.” 

Present Day

Flash forward to nearly one hundred years after Buck v. Bell. It is 2025, and this ruling has yet to be officially overturned, meaning that involuntary sterilization of the disabled community is still fully legal. Meanwhile, three years ago, the Supreme Court ruled to overturn Roe v. Wade, which originally gave American women the freedom to call the shots with their reproductive health. One long-standing ruling

gives practitioners the power to surgically remove the choice of parenthood from the disabled completely. The other: a recent overturning which gives states the power to force parenthood upon women who may find themselves expecting.

These two rulings are two different sides of the same coin of force, and a prime example of an intersectional fight. The bottom line is that everyone should be granted the dignity of choice when it comes to reproductive health. Bodily autonomy should not be involuntarily stripped from anyone, regardless of their abilities or lack thereof. At the heart of all advocacy is intersectionality, but especially within The Ruth Collective’s vision for personal healthcare choices to be just that: personal.