For many LGBTQ people, getting pregnant is done with planning worthy of chess masters. Yet LGBTQ people who have been pregnant are also more likely to have had unwanted or mistimed pregnancies and to need abortion services than cisgender heterosexual women—meaning the end of Roe v. Wade will have an immediate negative impact on LGBTQ people, whether or not it leads to the erosion of additional rights.
According to a fact sheet (PDF) released earlier this month from HRC, lesbian, bisexual, and queer cisgender women are more likely to have had abortions than cisgender heterosexual women, and higher proportions of LBQ cisgender women who have been pregnant report unwanted or mistimed pregnancies versus heterosexual women. Here are the numbers:
- Over half (56%) of lesbian women who have been pregnant, and approximately two-thirds (65.3%) of bisexual women who have been pregnant, have ever had a mistimed pregnancy—one which occurred earlier in life than they would have liked—compared with less than half (47.6%) of heterosexual women
- Over a third (38.9%) of lesbian women report ever having an unwanted pregnancy—one which, at the time they got pregnant, they did not want—compared with a little over a quarter each of bisexual (29%) and heterosexual (27.2%) women.
Additionally, higher proportions of LBQ cisgender women have experienced a pregnancy resulting from a non-consensual encounter, or from a partner who is violent or abusive:
- Data shows that over a third of lesbian women seeking abortion had experienced physical abuse from the person who got her pregnant. Additionally, over 7% of bisexual women had experienced sexual abuse, and almost one in ten had experienced physical abuse.
- 14.8% of lesbian and 3.2% of bisexual women who had an abortion, compared to 1.2% of heterosexual women who had an abortion, reported the pregnancy was the result of a forced sexual encounter.
- 7.1% of bisexual women had experienced sexual abuse from the person who got them pregnant, and almost 9% had experienced physical abuse. In comparison, less than 2% of heterosexual women had experienced sexual abuse from the person who got them pregnant, and only 3.6% had experienced physical abuse.
- 36% of transgender people who had ever been pregnant had considered attempting to end their pregnancy by themselves “without clinical supervision” (e.g., a self-managed abortion). Almost one in five (19%) went through with this attempt, according to research from 2019 (PDF). More than one in ten attempted self-managed abortion due to “difficult situations” such as fear of, or ongoing, intimate partner violence.
Furthermore, in a 2019 survey (PDF) of 1,700 transgender, nonbinary, and gender-expansive people assigned female or intersex at birth, a third (32%) of those who had ever been pregnant had had at least one abortion in their lifetime. More than half of the pregnancies were unintended.
One of the reasons for these differences is the discrimination many LGBTQ experience from health care providers, “particularly in reproductive health care settings,” says the fact sheet. This can lead to avoidance or delays in seeking reproductive health care, possibly lower rates of contraception use, and higher rates of emergency contraception use.
The overturning of Roe is therefore not just dire for LGBTQ people because of the possibility (as Justice Thomas suggested) that it could lead to the repeal of marriage equality, the right to private, consensual sexual relations, and the right to access birth control. The danger for our community (as for others) is already here.
See my earlier post for ways you can take action to support abortion rights, find ways to access abortion if needed, and protect your family against what may come.