Birth Control Options for the Disabled

Overview

The best kinds of birth control options for the disabled depend on the type of disability a person has. Those with physical disabilities can usually use the same kinds of birth control options as able-bodied adults, such as condoms and contraceptive pills. Mentally challenged adults may need more supervision in choosing the best options to avoid pregnancy.

Rights

According to Lennard J. Davis, author of "The Disability Studies Reader," advocates for the disabled often fight for the rights of women with physical disabilities such as blindness, deafness and amputations who they say have every right to choose their own from of birth control. As long as they are competent to make informed decisions, disability activists insist on preserving the rights of the disabled to bear children, or not, as they choose.

Access

Women and men with disabilities often do not have access to the same kinds of health care and medical information as able-bodied adults, say researchers at Disability World. Birth control information is usually not available in Braille for blind women, for example. Clinics are not always wheelchair accessible. In addition, disabled patients often are targets of discrimination from health-care providers and are not given the same options for birth control as their peers without disabilities.

Education

Special education programs are available for people with mental handicaps that can help teach them the social requirements regarding public nudity and appropriateness of sexual relations. James Stanfield Specialists in Special Education is a publishing company, for example, that provides educators with books, DVDs and other training materials for teaching sex education to the mentally challenged.

Sterilization

Controversy continues over the use of forced sterilization procedures for men and women with mental handicaps. Advocates, many of whom are caretakers and guardians of mentally challenged adults, believe that tubal ligation and vasectomies protect their loved ones from unwanted pregnancies that can harm the adult and the newborn. Many guardians prefer to have their family doctor inset IUDs or give birth control injections to their charges to prevent pregnancy. Advocates for the disabled continue to fight for the autonomous rights of all individuals to select their birth control methods. They say that the side effects of certain birth control devices are not always taken into consideration by caretakers and guardians when making these decisions.

Incompetence

Researchers at the Western Journal of Medicine argue that those who are incompetent to make their own medical decisions should have the decision made for them about the kinds of birth control they use. Studies done showed that 85 percent of parents of developmentally disabled children agreed that they would prefer to use permanent sterilization methods to prevent pregnancy in their children.