Commentary on sexual and reproductive health

Conclusion

The ultimate aim of sexual and reproductive research of disabled women is moving from the medical management of fertility prevention to attention to sexual pleasure and response, safe reproductive choices, safe pregnancy, labor, and delivery, and the ability to form healthy and loving relationships, healthy sexual identities, and a rich sexual culture within the disability community. The success of the research will depend on the influences of two factors. First, disabled women must define their own life problems. Here is where initial interviewing studies can be a rich source of research ideas. Understanding the realities of disabled women's lives depends on the investigator's viewing disabled women as the experts, viewing disabled women as a unique group, and not positioning nondisabled women as the standard of measurement.

The second influence is to ensure that disabled women have access to knowledge and play a role in designing interventions that will enable them to protect their own health and safety. In the deepest sense, research will be successful when the life of a disabled woman is no longer expendable; when harmful contraceptives are replaced by those that are in harmony with her body; when obstetricians learn safe vaginal delivery techniques; when sexual violence is not an inevitable hazard of being both disabled and female; when disabled lesbians no longer live a furtive life, having fallen in a crack between the lesbian and disability communities; and when disabled girls grow up with the confidence that they have a positive sexual future.