The Rhetoric of Disability in Reproductive Politics: a Lutheran Response

Disability studies and disabled activists critique involuntary sterilization and prenatal screening as products of the idea that disabled people lack worth. In recent history, proponents of legislation that restricts abortion access argue the reverse. They defend disabled personhood by showing how those with intellectual disabilities contribute to society. Despite competing ends, each claim reinforces associations between human value and a capacity to work. In this essay, I argue that the Lutheran tradition, surprisingly, contains resources to unhitch ethical visions of human dignity from demands for productivity, contribution, and work. Luther's emphases on human dependence, incapacity, and the need for God's help show an affinity with the Disability Justice Movement without undermining demands for bodily autonomy.