In recent years, legal scholars and practitioners as well as policymakers have focused unprecedented attention on the rights of parents with disabilities, particularly intellectual disabilities, and their children. At the same time, social scientists have developed a breadth of literature on the needs and experiences of these families. Nonetheless, a clear divide remains between the fields, resulting in ongoing discrimination and the unnecessary separation of many families headed by a parent with an intellectual disability. Hence, the overarching goal of this article is to explore how legal scholarship, advocacy, and policymaking can be better informed by social science. This Article begins with a brief historical perspective on how the rights of parents with intellectual disabilities have evolved over time. Analyzing the language in state dependency statutes and judicial decisions, this Article demonstrates the implicit and explicit bias that exists and the need for informed policies and adjudication. Next, the Article examines how the law can learn from social science by highlighting findings from current social science research concerning these families. Finally, the Article offers concluding thoughts about how decision-making in dependency cases as well as public policy can and should benefit from social science research.

Understanding the needs and experiences of parents with intellectual disability (ID) and their children is critical to ensuring that policies can effectively support these families. This research analyzed data from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study to examine the health outcomes of U.S. children whose mothers have (n = 263) and do not have ID (n = 1,298). Compared to mothers without ID, mothers with ID experienced worse outcomes related to socioeconomic status, limited support networks, and poor self-reported health. However, after controlling for sociodemographic characteristics, mother's intellectual disability was not associated with a child having fair or poor health, asthma, or being overweight or obese.

Despite important gains in human rights, persons with disabilities — and in particular women and girls with disabilities — continue to experience significant inequalities in the areas of sexual, reproductive, and parenting rights. Persons with disabilities are sterilized at alarming rates; have decreased access to reproductive health care services and information; and experience denial of parenthood. Precipitating these inequities are substantial and instantiated stereotypes of persons with disabilities as either asexual or unable to engage in sexual or reproductive activities, and as incapable of performing parental duties. The article begins with an overview of sexual, reproductive, and parenting rights regarding persons with disabilities. Because most formal adjudications of these related rights have centered on the issue of sterilization, the article analyzes commonly presented rationales used to justify these procedures over time and across jurisdictions. Next, the article examines the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and the attendant obligations of States Parties regarding rights to personal integrity, access to reproductive health care services and information, parenting, and the exercise of legal capacity. Finally, the article highlights fundamental and complex issues requiring future research and consideration.

This article provides an overview of the DOJ/HHS findings and their anticipated wide-ranging impact on parents with disabilities in the child welfare system. It briefly discusses the investigation and findings, and the expected impact of the Departments’ involvement as it relates to parents with disabilities, and provides information on how to file similar complaints.

This article, an adaption of the Rocking the Cradle report, provides readers with an understanding of this largely overlooked civil rights issue inherent in the discrimination faced by parents with disabilities, focusing on the legal and policy considerations. The first section provides a historical context on the parenting rights of people with disabilities. The following sections examine the four key areas wherein parents and prospective parents with disabilities face discrimination: child welfare, family law, adoption, and assisted reproductive technologies. Finally, the article concludes with a discussion on what Massachusetts is doing to remedy this unjust phenomenon and provides a call to action to Massachusetts advocates and policymakers.

Overview of the current state of rights for parents with disabilities and advice for attorneys.

In light of the recent discussions on national health reform, which so far have not focused on people with disabilities, this article serves as a call to action for the legal community to join in the local efforts to ensure that the civil rights of people with disabilities do not continue to be violated resulting in gross health disparities. This article provides readers with an understanding of a largely overlooked health care crisis through the lens of the disability rights movement.