Abstract
Based on the rights of autonomy and legal capacity, the article addresses the intersectionality between gender and disability. It includes a focus on both reproductive and non-reproductive rights; namely, the rights to have sex and access to sexual assistance. An overview of the main barriers in the exercise of these rights is also present, including serious human rights violations, such as forced sterilizations. Finally, the authors propose three specific tools under the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities to prevent infringements of rights: accessibility, accommodations, and support.
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Notes
- 1.
General Comment 22 on the right to sexual and reproductive health of the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights establishes that the right to sexual and reproductive health is an integral part of the right to health enshrined in article 12 of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (2016).
- 2.
Adrienne Asch was a scholar who wrote about the intersection of the fields of Bioethics and Disability. She was also a disability studies scholar and a person with a disability. It is important to mention this because sometimes the voices of important experts in the field of disability are considered merely testimonial because of their personal experiences as persons with disabilities and their academic inputs are therefore undervalued. Disability, then, instead of being a necessary condition for political legitimacy, becomes some sort of bias of radicalism in the eyes of some individuals without disabilities. Experts with disabilities must be academically valued as experts and politically valued as persons with disabilities. None of these credentials should be conflicting, but appreciated as a whole. “It was a persistent frustration to Asch that many of her admirers classified her first and foremost as a pioneering voice in clarifying disability rights and tended to overlook or diminish her identity as a Bioethicist. They often based their prioritization on her lifelong blindness, thereby seeming to overlook her training and production in the philosophical analytic basis for work in Bioethics.”
- 3.
The guarantee of equality in legal capacity refers to both the capacity to enjoy or have rights and the capacity to act or exercise them.
- 4.
Paragraph 4 establishes that: “States Parties shall ensure that all measures that relate to the exercise of legal capacity provide for appropriate and effective safeguards to prevent abuse in accordance with international human rights law. Such safeguards shall ensure that measures relating to the exercise of legal capacity respect the rights, will and preferences of the person, are free of conflict of interest and undue influence, are proportional and tailored to the person’s circumstances, apply for the shortest time possible and are subject to regular review by a competent, independent and impartial authority or judicial body. The safeguards shall be proportional to the degree to which such measures affect the person’s rights and interests.”
- 5.
Constitutional Court Colombia, Ruling C-131 of 2014.
- 6.
Constitutional Court Colombia, C-131/2014, no. 6.4.4., para. 2 and 3.
- 7.
Colombian Constitutional Court, ST-665, Oct. 30/17.
- 8.
“Though the term ‘sexual rights’ was included in the draft Platform of Action, it was omitted from the final version, an omission indicating the controversial nature of this suggestion. It must also be noted that the formulation falls short of the right to abortion and sexual preference, an important demand of women’s groups and the gay movement. Nonetheless, the inclusion of the paragraph even in this truncated form, and its accompanying vision of sexual autonomy and freedom of choice, are important developments in international human rights discourse.”
- 9.
As mentioned, the International Convention for the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination against Women has emphasized the protection of the exercise of the legal capacity of women in the field of property rights. The CEDAW recognizes that in civil matters, women have a legal capacity identical to that of men and the same opportunities to exercise that capacity. In particular, states are obliged to grant women equal rights to sign contracts and manage assets and to provide equal treatment at all stages of the proceedings in courts of law and tribunals.
- 10.
The Recommendations and General Observations of the Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities have systematically emphasized this reality.
- 11.
Buck v. Bell, 274 U.S. at 207.
- 12.
“…it is obviously fiction to suggest that a decision so made is that of the mental incompetent, however much the court may try to put itself in her place. What the incompetent would do if she or he could make the choice is simply a matter of speculation.”
- 13.
First case: “In Matter of Sallmaier, 378 N.Y.S.2d 989 (1976), the court, basing itself on expert testimony concerning the likelihood of a psychotic reaction to pregnancy, other evidence of psychological and hygienic difficulties, and the patient’s proclivity for sexual encounters with men, authorized the sterilization of a severely retarded adult woman.”
- 14.
- 15.
- 16.
Disability Rights Washington (DRW) “is a private, non-profit organization that protects the rights of people with disabilities statewide.” “A substantial portion of the DRW budget is federally funded.” http://www.disabilityrightswa.org. They carry out innovative and extremely interesting legal activism, for example, “TR v. Quigley” class action lawsuit for intensive in-home mental health services based in the community to avoid criminal and psychiatric institutionalization. DRW is P&A of the State of Washington. “The Protection and Advocacy (P&A) System and Client Assistance Program (CAP) comprise the nationwide network of congressionally mandated, legally based disability rights agencies. A P&A/CAP agency exists in every U.S. state and territory. There is also a Native American P&A in the four corners region of the Southwest.” http://www.ndrn.org/about/paacap-network.html. The federal law is called Protection and Advocacy for Individuals with Developmental Disabilities (PADD) 42 USC §§ 15041–15045.
- 17.
It is also necessary to differentiate between different types of “support.” This differentiation must be established firstly in relation to the type of act and secondly in relation to the type of appropriate support figure. In relation to the first, it is necessary to differentiate between transcendental acts for life (marriage, exercise of maternity, surgical operations, sale or purchase of a house, donation) and ordinary acts of common life (daily purchases, going on a trip, subscribe to a sports club). In relation to the second, it is necessary to make different types of support figures available to the person, which adapt to their particular situation.
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Palacios, A., De Giacomi, I.R. (2023). The Exercise and Enjoyment of Sexual, Reproductive, and Non-reproductive Rights: Gender and Disability Intersectionality. In: Rioux, M.H., Buettgen, A., Zubrow, E., Viera, J. (eds) Handbook of Disability. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-16-1278-7_89-1
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