This story was originally reported by Sara Luterman of The 19th. Meet Sara and read more of their reporting on gender, politics and policy.
Kara Ayers is a mother of four and uses a wheelchair. She relies heavily on her car because there are not many public transportation options where she lives in Cincinnati. She is concerned about a bill moving through the state legislature that would allow pregnant people to use disability placards.
Ohio is one of an increasing number of states, including Florida and Illinois, that have passed or are considering legislation that allows people at any point in a pregnancy to acquire disability parking placards. In Florida those placards are valid for up to a year, and the same is being proposed in Ohio.
Supporters describe the move as “pro-family,” designed to honor and provide support to parents through the difficulties of pregnancy. Opponents in the disability community, however, say there already isn’t enough parking to go around. But the conflict is not so simple. Pregnant and disabled people are not necessarily discrete groups, and both have significant unmet needs.
“Every once in a while, [parking placard bills] pop up as this idea, and people think of this as only a good thing. Why would we not want to do anything that's nice for pregnant people? But they don't really look at the unintentional consequences of bills like this,” Ayers said.
Designated parking spots for people with disabilities were established by the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) in 1990. The width, number, grade and dozens of other details are hammered down to very specific requirements. The standards have been updated over the years; the most recent change to the parking requirements took place in 2010. One in 25 spots in smaller lots are required to be designated for people with disabilities. In larger lots, the requirement can be as low as 2 percent. Not all parking lots meet those requirements.
“It’s a very basic math problem,” said Steve Lieberman, senior director of advocacy and policy for the United Spinal Association, which represents the interests of wheelchair users. He has worked closely on the issue of parking for the past four years and has pushed for a number of policy remedies, including increasing the number of spots, increasing enforcement and cracking down on placard fraud.
In January, the United Spinal Association released a report sharing some of their findings. The organization contacted agencies in 20 states and compared the number of placards in circulation to the total number of registered vehicles. They then compared that number to the minimum number of spots required by law. In every state measured, there wouldn’t be enough spots even if every parking lot perfectly adhered to the law — and many don’t.
“When we are already having trouble fitting 10 vehicles into four spots, we can't condone adding more people to that pool,” he said. “The math just doesn't work.”
Lieberman felt blindsided by the legislation in Florida, and now Ohio.
“We've been pursuing, at both the federal and state levels, legislation that would improve the situation for accessible parking. And then out of left field comes this curve ball that we're thrown by people who didn't think to ask anybody in the disability community,” Lieberman said.
READ MORE: Pregnant women can now apply for temporary handicap parking permits
It is difficult to estimate how many people are pregnant at any given time, so it is difficult to estimate exactly how many placards would be added. About 3.6 million babies are born in the United States each year.
Patrick Brown, a fellow at Ethics and Public Policy Center, a conservative think tank, helped craft the text of legislation used in Florida and Ohio. While he did not consult disability policy experts, he doesn’t see that as part of his job. His role is to start new conversations and think of new ideas to support families, he said.
“I see [speaking with interest groups] as the job of the politicians who are taking these ideas and putting them into text,” he told The 19th.
Brown isn’t married to any particular iterations of the idea – he also supports the establishment of separate placards for pregnant mothers and parents of young children. But disability parking placards are already a well-established system, and he views expanding eligibility is an easier route than establishing something brand new.
“The small business community and other folks who are involved in this conversation don't love the idea of additional requirements on businesses. Everybody's familiar with the traditional preferred parking spots for disability, though,” Brown said.
He argues that the change isn’t so radical. Many pregnant women with complications already qualify for placards, as that is considered legal disability. They simply might not know to ask.
“If you can't walk more than x number of feet without having to stop because of pain or that sort of thing — a lot of women would meet the eligibility if they knew about it,” he said. “And so part of it is helping make sure to know about it. Making it categorical is just saying that we want to make this as easy to access as possible.”
Brown stressed the importance of supporting pregnant and postpartum people during a time that is difficult for many.
“We need to recognize the vulnerability and the accommodation that pregnant women need,” Brown said.
Stephanie Woodward understands both arguments intimately, as a mother of six and a wheelchair user. Her state, New York, is not currently exploring similar legislation, but she has been following the issue. When her triplets were born last year, they spent months in the NICU. The hospital parking lot had a couple of designated disabled parking spots, but it did not meet legal requirements by having access aisles – space between designated parking spots that allow someone in a wheelchair van to extend a ramp or lift and get in and out of their vehicle. It isn’t an issue of convenience or ease so much as being able to use the parking lot at all.
“My triplets were in the NICU for three months and I was recovering from a C-section. I remember being really frustrated that the medical facility that I had to visit wasn't accessible and didn't have accessible spots for me to get in and out of my car. That made no sense,” she said. “You would think a medical facility would go beyond the requirements of the ADA, not below.”
Woodward finds the framing of the needs of people with disabilities versus those of pregnant people inaccurate and unhelpful.
“I think that some of the way it's been framed is this unnecessary conflict between pregnancy and disability, which first of all is false, because disabled people get pregnant, and also non-disabled pregnant people can have access needs… The root of the problem is scarcity, not pregnancy,” she said.
If disabled parking placards are extended to all pregnant people in Ohio, then there may be consequences specific to that state, according to Ayers, who is concerned about how increasing the number of people with placards will impact her ability to live her life.
“I just think there's a real lack of understanding that this isn't just a problem that [disabled people] can work around if we don't find one of those spots. It’s whether somebody can literally go to a place that they need to or not. And it's not just the shopping mall,” she said. “It’s schools and universities, it's jobs, it's hospitals and medical appointments.”
In Florida, the law expanding disabled placards to all pregnant people is undergoing a legal challenge. In Ohio, the bill expanding disabled placards to all pregnant people is under debate. It is possible the Ohio bill will be more limited in scope. For example, an Illinois law passed in 2022 allows for people in the last three months of pregnancy to get a placard for a more limited amount of time. Disability groups at the time did not object. There are also proposals to add increased enforcement of placard fraud or illegal parking to the Ohio bill.
Ayers is highly critical of the Ohio measure, and does not believe it supports families — not families like hers, but also the families of nondisabled people.
“It's an effort to seem as though we are developing policies that support people who are pregnant. But you can't look at that without widening your view to the larger context of how we're decimating critical supports like cuts to Medicaid. We’re still one of the only developed countries that don't have paid parental leave. We have abysmal maternal mortality and morbidity rates. I think this is performative policy,” she said.
