A lost opportunity: did the Disability Royal Commission let down parents with intellectual disabilities and their children?

Abstract

This article considers the response of the Disability Royal Commission (the Commission) to the experiences of the estimated 21,000 Australian parents with intellectual disabilities and their children. Research shows that interlocking complex social disadvantage and ableist professional attitudes toward parenting by people with intellectual disabilities persist, leading to very high rates of child protection and child removal. The approach taken by the Commission to examination of violence, abuse, neglect, and exploitation against parents with disabilities as a group led to the invisibility of parents with intellectual disabilities within the Final Report. The life course approach was narrowly conceived and did not fully capture reproductive justice across the life course. The issue of parenting and child protection contact was primarily considered in relation to First Nations families, which brought critical attention to some aspects of systemic violence and abuse, but issues and experiences of non-Indigenous parents with intellectual disabilities were absent. We argue that these and other flaws prevented the Commission from making important recommendations in relation to legal and policy reform to uphold the rights of people with intellectual disabilities to become parents and to receive the support they need for parenting over the life course.