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Objectives
To understand the diversity of sexual orientation among people obtaining abortions
in the US.
Methods
The Guttmacher Patient Study recruited a sample of 58 US abortion-providing facilities
to ask people obtaining abortions to fill out a 10-minute electronic survey. Fielding
took place from June 2021 to June 2022. We assess characteristics of people obtaining
abortions by sexual orientation.
Results
Our analytic sample consists of 5,146 individuals obtaining abortions in 41 states.
Some 83% of respondents identified as heterosexual or straight. About 12% of respondents
reported identifying as bisexual and 2% as pansexual. Respondents were more likely
to identify as “something else” (n=75) than as lesbian or gay (n=14). Compared with
heterosexual respondents, sexual minority (eg, non-heterosexual) individuals were
more likely to be under age 25, non-Hispanic White, and to have had no prior births.
While sexual minority respondents did not differ from heterosexual respondents in
their poverty levels, they were slightly more likely to report difficulty paying for
the abortion (36% vs. 41%). Sexual minority individuals were more likely than respondents
who identified as heterosexual to indicate that the pregnancy was the result of forced
sex (4% vs.1%). On a separate item asking about sexual identity, 62 respondents identified
as transgender, non-binary or something else, and these individuals were obtaining
care in all four regions of the country.
Conclusions
There has been a substantial increase in the proportion of individuals obtaining abortions
who identify as something other than straight or heterosexual. However, this group
remains at increased risk of sexual violence.
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Copyright
© 2022 Published by Elsevier Inc.
