‘Forced Is When They Tie You Down’: Curated Consent and Reproductive Decision-Making among Women with Intellectual Disabilities in Spain
By: Hannah Gibson
References
- Alessi, Edward J., and Sarilee Kahn. 2022. “Toward a Trauma-Informed Qualitative Research Approach: Guidelines for Ensuring the Safety and Promoting the Resilience of Research Participants.” Qualitative Research in Psychology 20(1): 121–154. DOI: 10.1080/14780887.2022.2107967
- Annamma, Subini A., David Connor, and Beth Ferri. 2013. “Dis/ability Critical Race Studies (DisCrit): Theorizing at the Intersections of Race and Dis/ability.” Race Ethnicity and Education 16(1): 1–31. DOI: 10.1080/13613324.2012.730511
- Arstein-Kerslake, Anna. 2016. “An Empowering Dependency: Exploring Support for the Exercise of Legal Capacity.” Scandinavian Journal of Disability Research 18(1): 77–92. DOI: 10.1080/15017419.2014.941926
- Arstein-Kerslake, Anna. 2017. Restoring Voice to People with Cognitive Disability: Realizing the Right to Equal Recognition before the Law. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI: 10.1017/9781316493526
- Bashford, Alison, and Philippa Levine (eds.). 2010. The Oxford Handbook of the History of Eugenics. Oxford: Oxford University Press. DOI: 10.1093/oxfordhb/9780195373141.001.0001
- Becerra Basterrechea, Beatriz. 2018.
“Forced Sterilisation of Women and Girls with Disabilities in Spain.” Parliamentary Question E-000791/2018. European Parliament, February 7. Accessed March 21, 2026.https://www.europarl.europa.eu/doceo/document/E-8-2018-000791_EN.html - BOE. 2020. “Ley Orgánica 2/2020, de 16 de diciembre.” Boletín Oficial del Estado, núm. 329, 17 de diciembre de 2020. Accessed March 21, 2026.
https://www.boe.es/eli/es/lo/2020/12/16/2 - Carlson, Licia. 2001. “Cognitive Ableism and Disability Studies: Feminist Reflections on the History of Mental Retardation.” Hypatia 16(4): 124–146. DOI: 10.1111/j.1527-2001.2001.tb00756.x
- Carlson, Licia. 2010. The Faces of Intellectual Disability: Philosophical Reflections. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. DOI: 10.2979/5854.0
- Council of Europe. 2011. “Convention on Preventing and Combating Violence Against Women and Domestic Violence (Istanbul Convention).” Council of Europe Treaty Series No. 210. Accessed March 21, 2026.
https://www.coe.int/en/web/conventions/full-list?module=treaty-detail&treatynum=210 - CRPD Committee. 2014. “General Comment No. 1 on Article 12: Equal Recognition before the Law.” UN Doc. CRPD/C/GC/1. Accessed March 21, 2026.
https://www.ohchr.org/en/documents/general-comments-and-recommendations/general-comment-no-1-article-12-equal-recognition - CRPD Committee. 2016. “General Comment No. 3 on Women and Girls with Disabilities.” UN Doc. CRPD/C/GC/3. Accessed March 21, 2026.
https://www.ohchr.org/en/documents/general-comments-and-recommendations/general-comment-no-3-2016-women-and-girls-disabilities - Demic, Sadeta, Rosemarie van den Breemer, Halvor Hanisch, and Inger Marie Lid. 2024. “Care and Choice Architecture: Relatives’ Support for Adults with Intellectual Disabilities in Supported Decision-Making Processes.” Journal of Intellectual Disabilities 29(3): 651–666. DOI: 10.1177/17446295241297184
- European Disability Forum (EDF). 2024. “Forced Sterilisation in the EU: 2024 Update.” EDF. Accessed March 21, 2026.
https://www.edf-feph.org/end-forced-sterilisation-in-the-eu/ - Flynn, Eilionóir, and Anna Arstein-Kerslake. 2014. “Legislating Personhood: Realising the Right to Support in Exercising Legal Capacity.” International Journal of Law in Context 10(1): 81–97. DOI: 10.1017/S1744552313000384
- Fricker, Miranda. 2007. Epistemic Injustice: Power and the Ethics of Knowing. Oxford: Oxford University Press. DOI: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198237907.001.0001
- Goodley, Dan. 2014. Dis/ability Studies: Theorising Disablism and Ableism. New York: Routledge. DOI: 10.4324/9780203366974
- Hartblay, Cassandra. 2020. “Disability Expertise: Claiming Disability Anthropology.” Current Anthropology 61(S21): S26–S36. DOI: 10.1086/705781
- Hollomotz, Andrea. 2011. Learning Difficulties and Sexual Vulnerability: A Social Approach. London: Jessica Kingsley Publishers.
- Kafer, Alison. 2013. Feminist, Queer, Crip. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. DOI: 10.2979/6841.0
- Kallianes, Virginia, and Phyllis Rubenfeld. 1997. “Disabled Women and Reproductive Rights.” Disability & Society 12(2): 203–221. DOI: 10.1080/09687599727335
- Kittay, Eva Feder. 1999. Love’s Labor: Essays on Women, Equality, and Dependency. New York: Routledge.
- Kittay, Eva Feder. 2001. “When Caring Is Just and Justice Is Caring: Justice and Mental Retardation.” Public Culture 13(3): 557–580. DOI: 10.1215/08992363-13-3-557
- Liddiard, Kirsty. 2018. The Intimate Lives of Disabled People. London: Routledge. DOI: 10.4324/9781315556598
- Mackenzie, Catriona, and Natalie Stoljar (eds.). 2000. Relational Autonomy: Feminist Perspectives on Autonomy, Agency, and the Social Self. Oxford: Oxford University Press. DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780195123333.001.0001
- Mayes, Robyn, and Gwynnyth Llewellyn. 2012. “Mothering Differently: Narratives of Mothers with Intellectual Disability Whose Children Have Been Compulsorily Removed.” Journal of Intellectual & Developmental Disability 37(2): 121–130. DOI: 10.3109/13668250.2012.673574
- McCarthy, Michelle. 2009. “Contraception and Women with Intellectual Disabilities.” Journal of Applied Research in Intellectual Disabilities 22(4): 363–369. DOI: 10.1111/j.1468-3148.2008.00464.x
- McConnell, David, and Shanon Phelan. 2022. “The Devolution of Eugenic Practices: Sexual and Reproductive Health and Oppression of People with Intellectual Disability.” Social Science & Medicine 298:
114877 . DOI: 10.1016/j.socscimed.2022.114877 - McLeod, Carolyn, and Susan Sherwin. 2000.
“Relational Autonomy, Self-Trust, and Health Care for Patients Who Are Oppressed.” In Relational Autonomy: Feminist Perspectives on Autonomy, Agency, and the Social Self, edited by Catriona Mackenzie, and Natalie Stoljar, 259–279. Oxford: Oxford University Press. DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780195123333.003.0012 - McRuer, Robert. 2006. Crip Theory: Cultural Signs of Queerness and Disability. New York: New York University Press.
- Nind, Melanie, and Hilma Vinha. 2014. “Doing Research Inclusively: Bridges to Multiple Possibilities in Inclusive Research.” British Journal of Learning Disabilities 42(2): 102–109. DOI: 10.1111/bld.12013
- Prados García, Celia. 2021. “La necesaria erradicación de la esterilización no consentida de mujeres con discapacidad desde el marco de los derechos humanos.” IgualdadES 5: 371–399. DOI: 10.18042/cepc/IgdES.5.03
- Prados García, Celia. 2024. “Mujeres, (dis)capacidad y toma de decisiones.” Dereito: Revista Xurídica da Universidade de Santiago de Compostela 33. DOI: 10.15304/dereito.33.0.9376
- Ribot Igualada, Jordi. 2023. “The Reforms of Spanish Law on Legal Capacity and Supported Decision-Making for Persons with Disabilities.” Family & Law 2: 1–22. DOI: 10.5553/FenR/.000060
- Rowlands, Sam, and Susan Walker. 2019. “Reproductive Control by Others: Means, Perpetrators and Effects.” BMJ Sexual & Reproductive Health 45(1): 61–67. DOI: 10.1136/bmjsrh-2018-200156
- Sanmiquel-Molinero, Laura, and Joan Pujol-Tarrés. 2019. “Putting Emotions to Work: Affective Disablism and the (Un)reproductive Disabled Subject.” Disability & Society 34(7–8): 1113–1133. DOI: 10.1080/09687599.2019.1650719
- Serra, María Laura. 2025. “‘If Someone Had Stopped to Talk to Me’: A Human Rights Analysis of Spain’s Mental Health System.” International Journal of Law and Psychiatry 99: 102069. DOI: 10.1016/j.ijlp.2025.102069
- Serrato Calero, Mª de las Mercedes, Ángel M. Delgado-Vázquez, and Rosa M. Díaz Jiménez. 2021. “Systematized Review and Meta-Synthesis of the Sterilization of Women with Disabilities in the Field of Social Science: From Macroeugenics to Microeugenics.” Sexuality Research and Social Policy 18(3): 653–671. DOI: 10.1007/s13178-020-00488-0
- Serrato Calero, María del Mar. 2023.
“Con voces propias: Los procesos de esterilización en mujeres con discapacidad.” PhD diss., Universidad Pablo de Olavide. - Shildrick, Margrit. 2009. Dangerous Discourses of Disability, Subjectivity and Sexuality. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. DOI: 10.1057/9780230244641
- Simplican, Stacy Clifford. 2015. The Capacity Contract: Intellectual Disability and the Question of Citizenship. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. DOI: 10.5749/minnesota/9780816693979.001.0001
- Stefánsdóttir, Guðrún Valdimarsdóttir. 2014. “Sterilization and Women with Intellectual Disabilities in Iceland.” Journal of Intellectual & Developmental Disability 39(2): 188–197. DOI: 10.3109/13668250.2014.899327
- Tilley, Elizabeth, Jan Walmsley, Sarah Earle, and Dorothy Atkinson. 2012. “‘The Silence Is Roaring’: Sterilization, Reproductive Rights and Women with Intellectual Disabilities.” Disability & Society 27(3): 413–426. DOI: 10.1080/09687599.2012.654991
- Tilley, Elizabeth, Jan Walmsley, Sarah Earle, and Dorothy Atkinson. 2016.
“International Perspectives on the Sterilization of Women with Intellectual Disabilities.” In Understanding Reproductive Loss: Perspectives on Life, Death and Fertility, edited by Sarah Earle, Carol Komaromy, and Linda L. Layne, 23–36. Farnham: Ashgate. - Tribunal Constitucional de España. 1994. “Sentencia 215/1994, de 14 de julio.” BOE núm. 197, de 18 de agosto de 1994. Accessed March 21, 2026.
https://www.boe.es/buscar/doc.php?id=BOE-T-1994-19400 - United Nations. 2006.
“Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.” New York: United Nations. Accessed March 21, 2026.https://www.un.org/development/desa/disabilities/convention-on-the-rights-of-persons-with-disabilities.html - Walmsley, Jan, Iva Strnadová, and Kelley Johnson. 2018. “The Added Value of Inclusive Research.” Journal of Applied Research in Intellectual Disabilities 31(5): 751–759. DOI: 10.1111/jar.12431
- Wiseman, Phillippa, and Jill Ferrie. 2020. “Reproductive (In)justice and Inequality in the Lives of Women with Intellectual Disabilities in Scotland.” Scandinavian Journal of Disability Research 22(1): 318–329. DOI: 10.16993/sjdr.677
- Yupanqui-Concha, Andrea, Cristian Aranda-Farias, and Victoria A. Ferrer-Pérez. 2021. “Health Practices of Domination and Exclusion: Views of Activists, Professionals and Researchers on the Situation of Forced Sterilization of Women and Girls with Disabilities in Spain.” Saúde e Sociedade 30(1):
e200107 . DOI: 10.1590/S0104-1290202120010
DOI: https://doi.org/10.16993/sjdr.1505 | Journal eISSN: 1745-3011
Language: English
Page range: 338 - 351
Submitted on: Mar 23, 2026
Accepted on: Jul 16, 2026
Published on: Jul 24, 2026
Published by: Stockholm University Press
In partnership with: Paradigm Publishing Services
Keywords:
© 2026 Hannah Gibson, published by Stockholm University Press
This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.