LGBTQ+ and other civil rights groups, along with progressive elected officials and more, are outraged at today's Supreme Court decision overturning Roe v. Wade and revoking the constitutional right to abortion. This means many states will ban the procedure, with grave implications for LGBTQ+ people among others, and that the right wing will target other hard-won rights, such as marriage equality.
"When the Supreme Court is willing to throw 50 years of precedent out the window, it proves that we are at an exceedingly dangerous, unprecedented moment," said a statement from Human Rights Campaign Interim President Joni Madison. "The Court's majority opinion does not reflect the will of our nation -- two-thirds of whom support Roe v. Wade -- but instead fulfills an extreme, out of step, ideological agenda. And it shows that all of our rights are on the line right now, as state lawmakers will be further emboldened to test the limits of our hard-won civil rights. Women are under attack, LGBTQ+ people are under attack, BIPOC people are under attack, and we are justifiably outraged. We cannot relent -- we must fight back."
A fact sheet released by HRC shows that LGBTQ+ women who have been pregnant are more likely to have had unwanted or mistimed pregnancies than heterosexual women and are more likely to need abortion services as well. Specifically, the report found lesbian (22 percent) and bisexual (27.2 percent) women who have been pregnant are more likely than heterosexual women (15.4 percent) who have been pregnant to have had an abortion, according to a new analysis of the 2017-2019 National Survey for Family Growth conducted by the HRC Foundation.
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"The message here is clear and distressing: Americans are losing protected access to abortion, a constitutional right they have valued for nearly 50 years, and other rights to personal liberty are at risk too," said a GLAAD President and CEO Sarah Kate Ellis. "The anti-abortion playbook and the anti-LGBTQ playbook are one and the same. Both are about denying control over our bodies and making it more dangerous for us to live as we are. Both divide our country into free and less free, the opposite of what the United States should be. Our bodies, healthcare and our future belong to us, not to a meddling politician or extremist Supreme Court justices, and we will fight back."
"This ruling will cost women their lives and livelihoods," said Tony Hoang, executive director of Equality California. "It will cost LGBTQ+ women, transgender men and nonbinary people their lives and livelihoods. And it will cost their friends, family, loved ones and neighbors those lives and livelihoods as a result. We cannot and will not allow this gross injustice to stand. We must fight twice as hard and twice as long, if necessary, to secure this fundamental right as our opponents have fought to rip it away. We are working with our allies in the reproductive freedom movement across California and across the country to protect access to safe, legal abortion. And we remain focused on a variety of LGBTQ+ issues, including attacks against trans kids, efforts to roll back protections for LGBTQ+ students, critical criminal justice reforms and the freedom to marriage equality. We will continue to monitor developments that threaten hard-fought rights to ensure that we can confront them quickly. And we must vote out anyone who stands in our way -- until the work is done."
"As a result of today's decision, some people will die because they can no longer access abortion care," Julianna Gonen, Federal Policy Director at the National Center for Lesbian Rights, said. "Others will have their lives ruined by not being able to make their own decisions about their health and their futures. And as Justice Thomas makes clear in his concurrence, which openly calls for the reversal of the fundamental rights to contraception, sexual intimacy, and marriage, the Court's disregard for precedent poses a clear and present danger to freedoms that are of utmost importance not only to LGBTQ people but to every person in this country."
"The Supreme Court's decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization is causing many people to experience a wide range of concerns for bodily autonomy, LGBTQ rights, and public health, including mental health," said Amit Paley, CEO and executive director of the Trevor Project. "The Trevor Project's polling has found that nearly 70 percent of LGBTQ young people say efforts to restrict access to abortion often gave them stress or anxiety. Overturning Roe v. Wade will allow states to further restrict and regulate essential health care and reduce access to the already limited number of LGBTQ-competent providers in many parts of the country, posing a threat to the health and safety of young LGBTQ people. In undermining decades of jurisprudence on the constitutional right to privacy, this decision could also jeopardize the rights afforded to LGBTQ people in the landmark Obergefell and Lawrence decisions -- to love who you love and be who you are without fear of criminalization. The Trevor Project will not stop fighting to establish true, lived equality for LGBTQ people, and our counselors are here 24/7 to support all young LGBTQ people across the country who may be feeling a wide range of emotions -- including fear, stress, and anxiety -- in response to this decision."
"Today we loudly affirm and pledge our solidarity with all people working for Reproductive Justice in this country," Kris Hayashi, Executive Director of Transgender Law Center, said in a statement. "Whether it is a right to an abortion, the right to affirming medical care, or the right to learn about your own history in schools, our collective rights to self-determination and bodily autonomy are inexorably entwined. There will be an inevitable rush to consider what this means for other legal precedents, but today's Supreme Court opinion is a time to pledge our solidarity and shared community with all people who seek to end pregnancies and to acknowledge the impact of this particular opinion on all of our lives."
"Every person in this country should be deeply alarmed by this shameful ruling, which is simply not normal and should be beyond the bounds of what is thinkable for the body entrusted to uphold our constitutional freedoms," said GLBTQ Legal Advocates & Defenders Executive Director Janson Wu. "A majority of Justices of the Supreme Court has overturned a half-century-old precedent protecting a vital individual right -- a right re-affirmed by this same Court as recently as six years ago -- and held open the door for a return to dangerous government intrusion into our most personal decisions and freedoms. There is no doubt this decision will have devastating consequences for millions of women and for anyone who can become pregnant. The consequences of restricting or completely banning abortion, as some states are poised to do, will fall hardest on people and families of color and those without the financial resources to travel out of state or seek alternative routes to care. This includes members of the LGBTQ community, who also get pregnant and need access to abortion care. Today's decision comes amid grave and escalating assaults on many fundamental liberties. We must rally together across all our communities to push back against these extreme assaults. We will fight alongside our partners and at every level of state and federal government and in the courts for the right of transgender people to access life-saving healthcare and for parents' basic right to seek that care for their transgender children; for the rights of LGBTQ students and students with LGBTQ families to be welcomed and included in schools; to protect the recognition of our relationships; to ensure stronger protections for LGBTQ families and all families; and for access to abortion, contraception and reproductive choice."
"It is disturbing and dangerous that the Court overturned the key precedents of Roe v. Wade and Casey," said Kierra Johnson, executive director of the National LGBTQ Task Force. "Doing so allows tremendous overreach and intrusion by the government into our most personal decisions and freedoms -- on an issue that was settled five decades ago. This ruling is rooted in sexism and misogyny. It denies equality before the law and restricts the right of anyone who needs abortion care in order to make their own decisions about their own lives...We know this: bans on abortion are deeply racist and profoundly sexist -- the harshest impacts always fall on Black and Brown women and pregnant people and our families and communities. This decision will impact these communities the most, and it is these lives that will be forever harmed by the loss of these fundamental rights."
