For many mothers living with disabilities and chronic illness; pregnancy is a heartbreaking experience of loss, and hope, and further loss. I often reflect on how the experience of loss impacted my own mothering identity. Before the births of my two sons, I experienced two miscarriages, and the death of my daughter, Petra. The years before my sons were born, I often felt like an unacknowledged entity walking through the world: We have words for people who have buried their parents, who have buried their spouses, but not for us who buried our children.
I have recently begun to think on ideas about who “should” be parents in our society. For mothers who live with chronic or inherited disabilities, often society responds with: “this is for the best” or “do you really want to pass on your condition to your child”. These responses come from a place of ingrained ableism and a history of Eugenics. We must acknowledge how this history threads through many of society assumptions about disabled women’s bodies when commenting on loss: What makes a life worth living? Who decides which lives are worth living? Why?
For many mothers living with disabilities and chronic illness; pregnancy is a heartbreaking experience of loss, and hope, and further loss. I often reflect on how the experience of loss impacted my own mothering identity. Before the births of my two sons, I experienced two miscarriages, and the death of my daughter, Petra. The years before my sons were born, I often felt like an unacknowledged entity walking through the world: We have words for people who have buried their parents, who have buried their spouses, but not for us who buried our children.
I have recently begun to think on ideas about who “should” be parents in our society. For mothers who live with chronic or inherited disabilities, often society responds with: “this is for the best” or “do you really want to pass on your condition to your child”. These responses come from a place of ingrained ableism and a history of Eugenics. We must acknowledge how this history threads through many of society assumptions about disabled women’s bodies when commenting on loss: What makes a life worth living? Who decides which lives are worth living? Why?
