UPDATE: On June 24, 2022, the Supreme Court overturned federal abortion protections. Learn more about the decision and its devastating consequences:

 

Mississippi’s abortion ban is unconstitutional. Reproductive rights are human rights.

GLAD partnered with the National Center for Lesbian Rights to write and file a friend-of-the-court brief submitted on behalf of 23 LGBTQ organizations urging the Supreme Court to protect access to abortion, uphold the precedent established in Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey, and avoid a ruling that would exacerbate the subordination of women.

The brief cautions the Court to consider both the extreme rarity and the dangerous, widespread consequences of overturning long-held equality and fundamental rights jurisprudence. It also lays out the catastrophic real-world impact overturning Roe and Casey would have on LGBTQ people.

While not discussed widely, members of our community are more likely to experience unintended pregnancies as a result of sexual violence, more likely to lack insurance, and more likely to face widespread discrimination in the health care system, including in access to contraception. Restrictions on abortion access put already vulnerable individuals, including sexual minority women, at heightened risk for higher rates of poverty, domestic violence, and negative health outcomes.

The U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments in the case on December 1, 2021 and we expect a decision by June 2022.

The brief was signed by:

  • Bay Area Lawyers for Individual Freedom
  • Council for Global Equality
  • Equality California
  • Equality Federation
  • Equality North Carolina
  • Family Equality
  • GLBTQ Legal Advocates and Defenders
  • Human Rights Campaign
  • LPAC Action Network
  • Mazzoni Center
  • Minority Veterans of America
  • Movement Advancement Project
  • National Center for Lesbian Rights
  • National Center for Transgender Equality
  • National Equality Action Team
  • The National LGBTQ+ Bar Association
  • Sexuality Information and Education Council of the United States
  • Transgender Law Center
  • Transgender Legal Defense and Education Fund, Inc.
  • U.S. People Living With HIV Caucus
  • The Whitman-Walker Institute
  • Evan Wolfson, Founder, Freedom to Marry
  • The Woodhull Freedom Foundation