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Re(al) Productive Justice: Disability and Gender Perspectives

 

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‌Welcome to the website of the Re(al) Productive Justice research project. The key goal of this project is to make visible the experiences of disabled people in Ireland seeking reproductive justice. The project took place from 2019-2023 and was funded by the Wellcome Trust.

Disabled people are often denied the right to make reproductive decisions, including decisions about fertility, contraception, pregnancy, childbirth and parenting. In many countries, there are specific laws criminalising sex with disabled people. There are also higher rates of sterilisation, and forced abortion among disabled women and girls than non-disabled women.

We hope these resources will help to make real change to the experiences of disabled people as they seek reproductive justice.

For more information regarding this project, click here.

Our Aim

This project explores the legal regulation and the real life experiences of disabled people in Ireland in making reproductive decisions. As part of this project, disabled people were invited to tell their stories of making, or being denied the opportunity to make, reproductive choices for themselves.The project is organised around 4 aspects of their reproductive experiences: pregnancy and birth, parenting, abortion, and fertility and contraception.

PI & Team

  • Eilionóir Flynn
  • Jenny Dagg
  • Áine Sperrin
  • Maria Ní Fhlatharta
  • Emma Burns

Collaborators

  • Suzy Byrne
  • Selina Bonnie
  • Carol Coulter
  • Jennifer Donnelly
  • Teresa Lynch
  • Elaine Grehan

Outputs

Impacts

As a result of the workshops held throughout the project and the connections made between disabled people and health, social care and legal practitioners, participants in the project have been invited to conduct accessibility audits of maternity wards and offer access training to nurses and midwives. Members of the research team have also joined coalitions advocating for human rights based amendments to the forthcoming Assisted Human Reproduction Bill to ensure no disability discrimination will be embedded in its provisions.