Asia Safe Abortion Partnership, a funding and capacity building network of 13 countries from Asia, invited founder and executive director, Nidhi Goyal, for a podcast called 'Worsened by COVID19 the 'Hierarchy of Needs', must be resisted'. This podcast is a part of ASAP-Asia's series of podcasts titled ‘The ASAP Conversations’ involving discussions on issues ranging from abortion laws across Asia, sex selection, disability & abortion rights, and the politics of sexual and reproductive health and rights.
In the podcast episode, Nidhi highlighted the stigma and challenges women with disabilities have always faced while accessing sexual and reproductive healthcare. Physical access and access to information have been barriers for women with disabilities even before the global pandemic. Nidhi also spoke about the lack of autonomy when it comes to disabled women's bodies and how the right to consent is often taken away from them. The conversation also focused on the hierarchy of needs when it comes to people living with disabilities and how it always boils down to mere survival. The question of rights such as safe abortion and reproductive health services has been a late revelation in both the feminist and the disability movement. Nidhi brought attention towards how this conversation has the danger of getting even more strongly reinforced in a post-pandemic world where the survival of the fittest would be the key principle that systems run by.
Listen to the podcast: https://m.soundcloud.com/asapconversations/worsened-by-covid19-the-hierarchy-of-needs-must-be-resisted-asap-conversation-with-nidhi-goyal
