Shauna Rae: How The World Views Disabled Women In Their Reproductive Health And Motherhood Practices – And What Changes Need To Be Made In Oder To Make Disabled Lives Easier
Shauna Rae is a young woman in her 20’s; a reality star who went viral for her appearance. After having gone through growth hormones on-and-off, she was ultimately diagnosed with pituitary dwarfism at the age of sixteen, a side-effect of her brain cancer and subsequent chemotherapy. Rae had a form of cancer as a young child, which stunted the growth of her pituitary gland. It resulted in pituitary dwarfism, the condition that keeps her under 4 feet tall and appearing as a child. She’d been very open about the struggles she’s had to face in her day-to-day life due to the consequences of her illness. It’s hard to living and being part of a society that doesn’t fully accept your differences. It’s not so much as people’s unwillingness to learn; but more of the inability or lack of interest to unlearn something that they were made to believe for a long time. But one particular thing she’d had to grapple with is her inability to have children due to the treatments she underwent as a child; or better yet, due to the medical neglect she and her parents had endured. Here, we break down Shauna Rae’s life story of living with the disability. We explore how her infertility journey relates to the broken system of how the world views women with disabilities. And we explain what changes need to made in order to understand how the world can adapt to make lives easier for women with disabilities; not harder. Let’s discuss…