Abortion Rights Are LGBTQ+ Rights, Too — And We Need to Fight Back

On Wednesday, Alabama Governor Kay Ivey signed a bill into law that, if and when it comes into effect, will stand as a near-total ban on abortion in the state, punishing doctors who perform them with felonies and up to 99 years in prison. As a result, Alabama is now home to the country's more restrictive abortion laws, making abortion illegal outside of when "necessary in order to prevent a serious health risk." Notably, the law does not include exceptions for instances of pregnancy from rape or incest.

Alabama joins a slew of other states, like Georgia, Mississippi, and Ohio, who have enacted legislation this year to severely restrict abortion rights; many have adopted so-called “heartbeat bills,” which move to ban abortion after the presence of fetal “cardiac activity” at around six weeks. Given that it takes longer than six weeks after conception for most women to realize they are pregnant, these are total abortion bans in practice. And these are just the states whose legislation has passed; in just the first quarter of 2019, 28 states have seen proposals or attempts to curtail abortion in some form.

The nationwide effort is part of a coordinated attack on abortion rights in America, and bills like Alabama’s in particular — as stated by Ivey herself — are intended to force a Supreme Court challenge to Roe v. Wade. The safety and rights of millions of Americans are at stake. And this includes millions of LGBTQ+ Americans, because women’s healthcare is LGBTQ+ healthcare, too, and attacks on abortion access disproportionately affect queer Americans.

Many of the activists behind recent anti-abortion bills are also anti-gay conservative fundamentalists. But it’s more than that these kinds of hateful ideologies are cut from the same cloth; the abortion rights and queer rights movements are indivisibly linked, both for obvious reasons — because queer people need abortions, too — and because LGBTQ+ people depend on healthcare services offered by facilities that offer abortion. Researchers have consistently found that queer people are more likely to experience poverty than non-queer people, and because impoverished people are more likely to rely on healthcare facilities that provide abortion, closing these clinics means severing some of the most marginalized within our community from accessible healthcare. For an organization like Planned Parenthood — whose clinics often function as an irreplaceable link to care for those living with HIV, on hormone replacement therapy, or in need of other forms of LGBTQ+-related care — bills that curtail abortion access often inadvertently curtail LGBTQ+ healthcare access, too.

LGBTQ+ people also often need abortion services, and curtailing them directly marginalizes our community. One 2015 study from researchers at George Mason University found that sexually active lesbian, bisexual, and trans high schoolers in New York were twice as likely as their straight and cis peers to become pregnant or impregnate someone else. A 2017 meta-analysis also found that adolescent lesbian and bisexual women had higher rates of pregnancy than their heterosexual counterparts, putting them at greater risk of unwanted pregnancies. Because poverty rates are higher among lesbian and bisexual women — with 28 percent living at or below the poverty level, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation, compared to 21 percent of heterosexual women — traveling to an abortion clinic outside state lines might prove more difficult and expensive for queer women in particular.

Transgender, gender non-conforming, and other queer people with uteruses are also affected by laws restricting abortions and reproductive rights. The National Center of Transgender Equality's 2015 U.S. Transgender Survey found that nearly one-third (29%) of respondents were living in poverty, largely due to the high unemployment rate — which was three times higher for the trans community than the general U.S. unemployment rate at the time of the survey. And a 2018 study published in Contraception: An International Reproductive Health Journal found that out of 450 self-identified trans individuals who participated, 71 percent were at potential risk of unintended pregnancy based on sexual attraction, and 23 percent stated they engaged in sexual behaviors that could result in pregnancy. Six percent reported an unplanned pregnancy, and 32 percent chose to have abortions. An overwhelming majority (93 percent) were pro-choice.

Prominent LGBTQ+ rights organizations were quick to condemn Alabama’s new law, as well as the recent wave of anti-abortion legislation nationwide.

"Throughout our nation's history, reactionary politicians in Alabama have gone to extreme lengths to harm women, people of color, and other vulnerable groups," Shannon Minter, Legal Director of the National Center for Lesbian Rights, told them. in a statement. "This unconstitutional law is the latest installment of that oppressive history. This is a terrible day, but it is also a wake-up call to organize, mobilize, and stand up for the fundamental right to basic reproductive healthcare. “

“The recent passage of Alabama’s and Georgia’s aggressive anti-choice legislation is an attack on basic human rights, including LGBTQ rights," said Clare Kenny, Director of Youth Engagement for GLAAD, in a press release. "Limiting access to abortion is not just a women’s issue — it is an issue that affects us all. The right for a person to choose what is best for their body is a human right and we all must join in the fight to keep abortion accessible, safe, and legal.”

National organizations like the HRC, the Los Angeles LGBT Center, and the Transgender Law Center shared their distress at Ivey's actions and acknowledged how deeply abortion bans like Alabama’s can harm the queer community.

"Those most harmed by this already have barriers to reproductive health — trans folks, women of color, disabled people," the Transgender Law Center tweeted. "These are the same communities most vulnerable to sexual violence, too."

"Any legislation that targets reproductive rights or Planned Parenthood also targets LGBTQ people, who face disproportionate challenges accessing competent, reliable health care," HRC tweeted. "We will fight to protect access to health care — in Alabama, Texas & everywhere."

Organizations like Southern Equality and the Alabama-based TKO Society ("a Southern-centered grassroots movement founded and led by black, transgender, queer, and gender non-conforming people") are sharing Ivey's phone number and asking for Alabamians to urge her to veto the law. And with any hope, issues like Alabama’s abortion bill, as with the eventual defeat of the anti-LGBTQ+ extremist Republican Roy Moore in his 2017 Senate run, will mobilize voters both within and outside the state to raise their voices in opposition. No matter where you live or how you identify, the fight for abortion access affects you or someone you love — and if we don't stand up for healthcare access for everyone, we all lose.

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