Over 48 million people of reproductive age assigned female sex at birth currently use contraceptives, including up to 3.9 million cisgender sexual minority women and transgender adults, according to new analyses by the Williams Institute at UCLA School of Law.
More than one in ten (13.1%) high school girls and 6.2% of women ages 18-49 self-identify as bisexual. Research shows that unplanned pregnancies are more common among bisexual women than their heterosexual peers. Among women ages 15-44, the odds of an unwanted pregnancy are 1.75 times greater for bisexually identified women than their heterosexual peers.
“Comprehensive sexual health assessments that ask all patients about partners, practices, and protections are critical to prevent unplanned pregnancies for many in the LGBT community,” said lead study author Kerith J. Conron, the Blachford-Cooper Distinguished Scholar and Research Director at the Williams Institute. “Access to free or low-cost contraceptives is particularly important to groups within the community that disproportionately experience poverty – including bisexual women, transgender people, and LGBT people of color, as well as LGBT youth who are economically dependent on caregivers.”
The Supreme Court will decide this month whether employers with religious or moral objections have the right to deny women free birth control coverage under the Affordable Care Act. The Court also recently found unconstitutional a law requiring doctors who provide abortions in Louisiana to have hospital admissions privileges.
Researchers estimate that that Court decision ensured access to abortions for an estimated one million people of reproductive age assigned female sex at birth (15-49) in the state, including approximately 86,000 cisgender sexual minority women and transgender adults—the majority of whom are bisexual and people of color.
An estimated 2.7 million cisgender sexual minority women and transgender adults live in the 21 states that require doctors to have admissions privileges at local hospitals; have enacted requirements for admitting privileges that are not currently in effect, or have a governor and legislature opposed to abortion.