National Disability Radio
Changing Laws Can Change Lives
This episode of National Disability Radio highlights a recent disability rights victory in Colorado, where advocates successfully worked to repeal a law that permitted the forced sterilization of people with disabilities. One of our very own P&As, Disability Justice in Colorado, was instrumental in making this happen! Hear from policy leaders and self-advocates behind the effort as they discuss coalition-building, and why disability rights progress depends on keeping people with disabilities at the center of the conversation. **NOTE** Disability Law Colorado has recently rebranded to Disability Justice ! Check out their new messaging and branding on the web and across their socials: Disability Justice’s Website : https://disabilityjustice.co/ Disability Justice’s Social Media Channels Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/disabilityjustice Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/disabilityjusticeco/ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@disabilityjusticeCO The Arc of Colorado’s Website: https://www.thearcofco.org/ The Arc of Colorado’s Social Media Channels: Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TheArcofColorado Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/arcofcolorado/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-arc-of-colorado/ X (Twitter): https://x.com/thearcofco YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@TheArcofColorado The Arc of the United States’ Website: https://thearc.org/ The Arc of the United States’ Social Media Channels Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thearcus/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thearc_us/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/thearcus/ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@thearc_us Transcript: Michelle Bishop: Okay. Sorry, sorry. I can get serious. We can do this. Wait, are we recording? Alden Blevins: Yes. Michelle Bishop: Oh, okay. Stephanie Flynt McEben: Well, there's our cold open. Here we go. Michelle Bishop: Hi everyone, and welcome back to National Disability Radio, the official podcast of the National Disability Rights Network, where we share with you stories and conversations that advance the rights, voices, and leadership of people with [00:00:30] disabilities. I'm Michelle Bishop, one of your co-hosts, and today we are really excited to be joined by some of our own, two folks we were able to connect with through our own network of organizations across the US. We're going to be talking with Disability Law Colorado about some of the recent amazing advocacy work that they've been doing. But before we do that, I'm going to kick it to my co-hosts. Stephanie Flynt McEben: That's right. Hey, everybody. Stephanie Flynt McEben, public policy analyst with the National Disability Rights Network and two-thirds of [00:01:00] your podcast hosting team. But yeah, wanted to kick it off to our wonderful guests. Jack Johnson: Sure. Yeah, thank you for having me. So I'm Jack Johnson. I work at Disability Law Colorado as our public policy liaison, the one and only, so I'm a team of one here in Colorado, but am joined by a lot of great advocates in our network through our community partners, as well as all of the people that work at Disability Law Colorado who bring their lived experience to our policy [00:01:30] work and their expertise in their specific areas that they work in every day. And here in Colorado, we have a very busy legislative session and a very active legislature, which means we get to do a lot of fun work. And I get to work with Molly all the time, which I'm really grateful for, and I can pass it over to her. Molly Kirkham: Perfect. Well, yeah, thank you all. I'm Molly. I work for the Arc of Colorado as a legislative policy advocate, which basically means I get to talk to senators, [00:02:00] representatives, about bills and issues that matter to individual with disabilities. And aside from that, I'm also past president of SFO and vice president of Speaking for Ourself Colorado and People First. Speaking for Ourselves is a statewide group and People First is local. And I've always been connected to disabilities. Stephanie Flynt McEben: Awesome. Thank you so much, Molly. I'm going to pass on to Alden. Alden Blevins: [00:02:30] Yeah, I was just going to say I'm so glad that you're both here today. I think this type of legislative advocacy work is so important. I used to work at a P&A myself in Virginia, and back when I was doing their communications and kind of stressing the importance of the work, I kept coming back to the key phrase that changing laws can change lives. And I think that work like you guys have done on this bill that we're going to talk about today is something that could maybe be a blueprint for other P&As across the United States as they struggle with similar things [00:03:00] in their legislatures. So thank you so much for being here with us today. Michelle Bishop: Yes, we're excited to talk about this, especially anytime we get a chance to highlight some of the incredible work that's being done in our own network. That's our favorite thing to do. So first things first, let's get into it. For any of our listeners who might be unfamiliar, the big news is that Disability Law Colorado worked with their state legislature to get a new law passed that would end forced sterilization policies that are on the books. [00:03:30] Can you talk a little bit about what the law allowed and how long it was essentially on the books? Jack Johnson: Sure. Yeah. So as a little bit of a background, lots of states around the country have these laws. I think maybe a dozen or so have repealed them. Colorado now joins that list, but over 30 states still have these laws on the books, and it's unclear [00:04:00] how many states use them still. But the fact that they exist even here in Colorado has been a problem for us and something we've tried to solve. And so what the law did is it created a specific pathway for a court to order the sterilization of a person who has an intellectual or developmental disability over their objection. It was actually passed not that long ago, around the same time that the ADA was passed in the '90s and early 2000s, and amended [00:04:30] through that decade. But the reason it was passed is because before this, courts were just doing it, and it goes all the way back to our state hospital and practices of eugenics back in the 1920s all the way through to the end of the 1900s where there was different courts doing different things, but not a legal due process pathway. And so when it was passed, it was supposed to be more progressive by adding [00:05:00] due process protections and adding things to the law that would prevent these sterilizations from happening without judicial intervention or without clear judicial direction. However, here we are in 2026 and the consensus is pretty clear that one's progressive policy now is very regressive because it still through statute authorizes eugenics-level sterilization for people over their objection. Alden Blevins: Yeah. It's wild [00:05:30] to think that it was passed that recently to me. And you kind of delved into this a little bit with your answer, but I mentioned earlier, I'm a woman with autism and I'm personally all too familiar with the rich history of eugenics that is unfortunately a part of America's story. So I just wanted to ask, how do you see this connecting to the broader history of how people with disabilities are treated in the United States? I know I have my own answer, but I wanted to see if you had any thoughts. Jack Johnson: Yeah, I [00:06:00] mean it's very interesting. This is the year 2026. Buck v. Bell was passed in 1927, so we're coming up on the hundredth anniversary of that Supreme Court decision and the decision that still could theoretically be used as precedence in future cases. And after a hundred years of advocacy, we have other protective laws like the ADA and other things, but [00:06:30] this is the last final piece, I think, in terms of our legal protections that needs to come into place. And it's a really problematic history, especially here in our specific state, in Colorado, where we have a single state hospital, which used to be a large institutional setting primarily for people who have intellectual or developmental disabilities or behavioral health disorders. It has since been transitioned in a way that is more clinically focused, but [00:07:00] the building itself remains and the practice itself remains at least a theoretical possibility in the law. We've been as an investigative unit, as the P&A, obviously active in protecting people's rights. And there hasn't been a recent case, at least in the last 10 years where we've had to challenge one of these proceedings. But in an era now where other areas of disability rights are actually regressing, and we're seeing policies passed [00:07:30] that move us backwards, we took the opportunity to take that last step forward to pass this law. Stephanie Flynt McEben: Thank you so much, Jack. I really appreciate it. In talking a little bit about, obviously we both know this as public policy folks, but a lot of factors and things can come into play when trying to get a bill passed, let alone a bill signed into law. And so I was wondering if you could [00:08:00] talk a little bit about any political barriers, cultural barrier, any types of barriers that you might've encountered when advancing this piece of legislation? Because I can't imagine, as we all know, policy does not happen overnight. And so I'm sure that this has been a long time coming given the nature of public policy as well in general. Jack Johnson: Yeah. We have been fortunate that the bill passed, I think unanimously or close to unanimously, [00:08:30] through the vote chambers and got almost 100 votes of the legislators, but it wasn't easy. I think we started this project actually over a year ago during the 2025 General Assembly. And because of a lot of barriers to how slow things move in politics, as well as some of the policy questions related to this topic, it took us over a year just to get our appropriate bill drafted with sponsors in place [00:09:00] to run the legislation. And even as the legislation passed, I think there were especially folks who unfortunately, I think, still have the policy in mind that some level of eugenics is acceptable to them, that there was some outreach to the legislators and to us that this was the wrong direction to take and it would lead [00:09:30] to negative outcomes for people, which is surprising given the year that we're in, but maybe not all that surprising given some of the other areas of disability rights where we're seeing policies go backwards. But in spite of that, I think we had people like Molly and other people speak for themself who have lived experience with a disability, who, given this law, could be sterilized over their objection. And so having them speak in both of our panels of public testimony [00:10:00] in the House and the Senate was really, really powerful to the legislators and I think helped convince them despite the outreach they were getting from other folks that this was the right policy to pass. Alden Blevins: Yeah, that leads us so nicely into the fact that I think having buy-in from the disability community is always helpful when it comes to the world of legislative advocacy, because ultimately people want to hear from their constituents. So that said, could you tell us a little bit more about how you [00:10:30] engaged advocates with disabilities to help support you guys? Or you said maybe they delivered some testimony when advancing this bill. Jack Johnson: Yeah, absolutely. So Colorado's legislative session I think is like most states in that we start in January and we go through the spring and we're time-limited to the middle of May, 120 days after we start. So that's kind of the cycle that we all work on to pass public policy objectives, which means that at the end of every May or the beginning of every June, [00:11:00] we meet as an organization, as a P&A, and we talk about what the next year's objectives are. And that includes from our survey that we put out into the community issues that people are facing, as well as barriers that our legal teams are seeing with laws that are not working appropriately or that need to be changed or repealed or protections added for people with disabilities. And from there, we spend most of the summer meeting with all of our community partners. So all [00:11:30] of the organizations that represent and advocate for people with disabilities and who interact in this world. We have community round tables and do one-on-one meetings where we present what we think our priorities are going to be for the next year. We get input from our community partners and we hear what they're working on and what we can support them on as a collective. And from that round table, we usually come away with both our legislative priorities, but also our team's legislative priorities. [00:12:00] So everyone else who works in the legislature, who advocates here, we understand what every organization's doing and how we can partner with each other and support each other, and then testify in support of each other's legislation. And so from those community meetings, there was a lot of excitement about this bill, and they're open to the public. So it's not just if you are a part of an organization, anyone with a disability is welcome to join. And we have email lists that people then can join onto if they want to learn about particular [00:12:30] pieces of legislation throughout the summer and the fall as we advance them. And when it comes time to testify, we just notify our partners and anyone on those email lists to come speak their voice. And we've been fortunate the last couple of years because of all this community-building that we've done, that when we run legislation or our partners run legislation, there's always great turnout in supporting the rights of people with disabilities. And especially here in Colorado, we have had great success the last three to five years [00:13:00] in really passing impactful legislation, and this is just another example of it. Michelle Bishop: Jack, just congrats to you and to everyone on the work that was done here. And I believe it when you say folks were excited about doing work on this bill, because the historical perspective is one of the things that's really interesting to me. When I talk to folks I know from outside disability rights world, I think this is one of those issues that people think is, "This is old, this is from the past. There's a problem that should be solved. [00:13:30] This is not an issue anymore." But it's not just Colorado. Antiquated laws like these seem to stay on the books. They stick around even when notions of how we approach disability have changed. And I'm wondering why you think laws like this seem to have such staying power even decades after society has, I'll say for the most part, rejected these kinds of ideas. Jack Johnson: Yeah, you're right. We see lots of laws, not just this one, that seem antiquated but still [00:14:00] remain on the books. And I think there's a lot of reasons why. The first reason is that many of these laws, it takes an act of a governing body to change the law, and legislators only have so much time in their day and so much effort to run legislation across all of their constituencies. And so taking time to pass a law that maybe seems antiquated and doesn't do anything requires people to step up and ask for it to be changed. [00:14:30] It requires us as the P&A to devote our resources to repealing it and our community partners to come testify and a legislator to spend 120 of their days in legislative session to advocate for its passage. And so the inertia of getting any law passed small or large is big. And when you think about all of the different areas of disability rights that need attention, all the legal protections that need added or all the systems that need improved or all the old laws that need repealed, [00:15:00] sometimes it takes a lot to get all of those resources into place to repeal a law that may be old. But also there is a lot of institutional power that we take back in disability rights. And so institutions, the governments or state or local governments, large institutions related to healthcare or economic institutions, even [00:15:30] laws that they potentially don't use anymore doesn't mean that they would accept us removing them, taking them off the books, because that's taking away some of their perceived power. And so when you're looking at a government and we're asking it to give us more rights, give people with disabilities more rights and take away some of the power they have over people with disabilities, even if it's not power that they currently use, there is sometimes that institutional [00:16:00] resistance to allowing that change to occur. And so between those two things, sometimes it's hard to find a sweet spot where you can actually get something passed. Alden Blevins: Yeah, I think resistance to change is just something that we struggle with in general, but especially when it comes to those larger systems that you spoke so well about, it can really be hard to just change people's minds about the way something has always been done or the way [00:16:30] something has always been framed. Stephanie Flynt McEben: Oh, 1000%. Just talking about that, I think one of the things that really helps in terms of changing minds is really spotlighting the lived experiences of individuals with disabilities. And so with that, I do want to pivot our next question over to Molly. So Molly, I know that you have your own lived experience with disability, and I know that this topic is an incredibly heavy topic, [00:17:00] especially throughout the disability community. Do you remember how you felt when you first realized or learned about that a law like this was a thing or existed? Molly Kirkham: Yeah, I definitely can. For me, my first reaction I think was shock. Kind of like what you guys and Jack said, it's 2026, and I was shocked to hear that it's still happening and that it hasn't been. [00:17:30] Yeah, it's more of shock of, wow, we have so much progressed in thinking and how we value people with disabilities in the community, but it's still shocking to think that there's still stuff like for sterilization and that's still happening. And so to me, it's shock. And also that it's time that we address this. So, for real, shock and almost, not frustration, but just like, wow, how? And [00:18:00] almost like, yeah, because I wouldn't think that was still going on. So that shock of being like, okay, this is still happening, for me, I think it's more just [inaudible 00:18:16] 2026 and this is still going on. And I think that's how probably a lot of people feel, is the unknown too. It's like you don't know that's going on. So when you hear it, you're like, "Okay, let's do something about this." Stephanie Flynt McEben: Yeah, absolutely. And [00:18:30] I think that you hit a major point on the head, is a lot of people don't know what they don't know. And so I think that's a really huge point that hitting on is so important. And I definitely agree. It's 2026. You wouldn't think that laws like this would exist, or at least the average everyday person wouldn't think so, but you pull behind the curtain and this is what you see. I know that Alden has some lived experience that maybe she may be able to share too. Alden Blevins: [00:19:00] Yeah. So I was just going to say that as someone with my own lived experience with disability and my own trials and tribulations, especially with navigating some systems as a person with disabilities, I know that something that can be very hard for our community is trusting systems, especially the medical system, the healthcare system or the legal system. And I just wanted to ask you, Molly, how do you think that laws like these and their history affects [00:
