A Minority Within a Minority. Motherhood
in Women with Intellectual Disability Cover Image

Mniejszość w mniejszości. Macierzyństwo kobiet z niepełnosprawnością intelektualną
A Minority Within a Minority. Motherhood in Women with Intellectual Disability

Author(s): Agnieszka Wołowicz
Subject(s): Family and social welfare
Published by: Instytut Stosowanych Nauk Społecznych Uniwersytetu Warszawskiego
Keywords: intellectual disability; reproductive rights; motherhood

Summary/Abstract: The goal of this article is to broaden social reflection regarding intellectually disabled women’s access to reproductive rights and the right to a family life. Women with intellectual disability are discriminated in their access to reproductive rights and the right to a family life both at the level of social practice and in legislation. This is manifested, among other things, in the challenging of their right to take procreational decisions, in the constructing of a social image of women with intellectual disability as unequivocally incompetent in raising children, in intellectual disability being treated as an unqualified risk to children, and in the curtailing of these women’s say in regard to the raising of their children. This is having numerous consequences, such as the abandoning of sex education, greater supervision by the institution of social support, as well as abuse of the procedure for depriving these women of their parental rights.

  • Issue Year: 2018
  • Issue No: 26 (2-2)
  • Page Range: 181-208
  • Page Count: 28
  • Language: Polish