Is 'Roe v Wade' the Gateway to Lose Our Rights Next?
Unless you've been under a rock or away at sea, the recent ruling of the U.S. Supreme Court's 5-4 opinion overturning the Roe v Wade abortion ruling has also shaken your world!? Correct?!
Many are concerned as Justice Clarence Thomas's concurring opinion wrote that the court should consider all of its "substantive due process procedures."
Including Lawrence v. Texas, 2003 decision that established the right to same-sex intimacy, and the Obergefell v. Hodges, which legalized same-sex marriage in 2015.
Even so, Justices Alito and Thomas have previously expressed their desire to reverse Obergefell.
Many see this as an attack on civil progress and the sense of security millions of Americans have fought and won over the decades. Despite raising the alarm about these civil rights quandaries, Justice Thomas has been relatively quiet on the overturning Loving v. Virginia, contrary to his searing decisions lately.
A legal advisor for America's largest LGBTQIA+ rights group, Human Rights Campaign, implores the court's decision to impact the entire lesbian, gay, transgender, and queer community.
"The LGBTQ community relies on reproductions healthcare, LGBTQ people seek and receive abortions, they seek and receive and use contraception." mentioned attorney Cathryn Oakley, who is with the HRC.
For example, lesbians (22.8 %) and bisexual women (27.2%) who have been pregnant are more likely than heterosexual women (15.4%) to have had an abortion, according to HRC's analysis of the 2017-2019 National Survey for Family Growth.
Due to issues including abortion-access barriers and health care mistreatment, over a third of transgender people who have been pregnant considered terminating the pregnancy themselves. Nearly 1 in 10 of them went through with the attempt, according to a 2019 report published in the BMJ Sexual & Reproductive Health journal.
Accessing contraception could become much more difficult because of the ruling, and access to fertility treatments could also be threatened, Oakley said.
"Many LGBTQ people rely on assisted reproduction," she said. "If the law believes that human life begins at conception, that means those embryos in the petri dish are legally people. That would make IVF impossible to function," she said, referring to in vitro fertilization.
The clinics that provide abortion usually provide gender-affirming health care to trans people, such as puberty blockers and m.
"LGBTQ people receive a range of reproductive health care from clinics that provide abortions, and having those clinics be open and able to operate is important," Oakley said.
In a legislative session that has seen a historic number of anti-LGBTQ bills, health care for transgender people has also been legally restricted at the state level.
This year, state legislators introduced more than 340 anti-LGBTQ bills, according to the Human Rights Campaign, which hosted a call for reporters on the topic earlier this month. The Equality Federation estimates at least 35 have passed so far.
Last month, Alabama became the third state, after Arkansas and Tennessee, to pass a law restricting the provision of transgender health care and the first to add felony penalties. And earlier this month, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis' administration moved to restrict transgender care for minors and trans people of all ages on Medicaid.
**This blog is an interpreted excerpt from an article. How will Roe v. Wade reversal affect LGBTQ rights? Experts advocates weigh in(msn.com) on NBC news from MSN online, and contributing writers Julie Moreau and Zachary Schermele, and Brooke Sopelsa