Women with Disabilities: Ethics of Access and Accommodation for Infertility Care

Abstract

Women with disabilities face challenges related to their disabilities of access and accommodation for infertility care. This chapter explores the societal and structural barriers to infertility care these women experience, including legal issues, training and attitudes of physicians, ability to pay, lack of adaptive equipment, inexperience of providers in treating these patient populations, and lack of access to health insurance coverage for infertility care. Ethical arguments respond to providers’ concerns about offering reproductive care to women with disabilities, including concerns about physician competence, physician choice, risks to the woman, inability to consent, risks to any offspring, conscientious objection, and ability to pay. It concludes that there is at best limited and partial justification for many of these concerns, especially in the context of background injustice. The chapter ends with an account of reasonable modifications and accommodations to allow women with disabilities to enjoy reproductive services on equal terms with other women.

Keywords: ADA, access, accommodation, disability, ethics, infertility care, justice, pregnancy, rights, women