P045Sexual orientation among a national sample of people obtaining abortions in 2021–2022

Abstract

<h3>Objectives</h3> To understand the diversity of sexual orientation among people obtaining abortions in the US. <h3>Methods</h3> 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. <h3>Results</h3> 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. <h3>Conclusions</h3> 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.