More Nonbinary People Support Abortion Rights Than Women
FG Trade | Getty Images
In the third annual poll from The 19th and SurveyMonkey, survey data highlights the ways women and LGBTQ+ Americans consider the key issues that will define this year’s election. In a race that could see VP Kamala Harris become the first woman president, respondents shared their sentiments on questions ranging from abortion rights, reproductive healthcare, gender-affirming healthcare and beyond.
The report found that a majority of all people believe that abortion should be legal all or most of the time, echoing previous research that underscores the fairly broad support for abortion rights across the country. But when the polling dug down into who exactly supports abortion, one group of people emerged at the forefront. According to this data, an overwhelming majority of nonbinary people support abortion rights.
According to the poll, nonbinary people were more likely to rank abortion as the most important issue to them right now, to say that abortion should be legal in all cases, and to say that politicians are not informed enough about abortion to create fair policies. The report found that 70 percent of nonbinary respondents said abortion should be legal in all cases, compared to 35 percent of women and 25 percent of men.
More specifically regarding fetal personhood, an ideology which bestows the same rights currently reserved for adults and children to embryos from the moment of fertilization, and which is widely understood to stand in opposition to interventions such as IVF, as well as abortion, most respondents do not believe that a fetus should have the same legal rights as a person. While it is a slim margin, 53 percent of respondents reject this ideology. 41 percent of respondents said the government should protect a fetus’ rights from the moment of conception.
The 19th and SurveyMonkey’s polling data highlights the stark divide between political parties: 81 percent of Democrats and 55 percent of independents opposed the idea of fetal personhood, compared with 28 percent of Republicans. And while 57 percent of women and 50 percent of men oppose fetal personhood — a staggering 77 percent of nonbinary respondents oppose the anti-abortion ideology of ascribing personhood to a fetus.
These findings underscore how crucial abortion rights are to the trans and nonbinary community. In 2022, Imara Jones, founder and CEO of TransLash Media, told Teen Vogue about the importance of including trans people in the fight for abortion rights.
“This issue is not merely philosophical for our community. Trans people have babies, need general access to reproductive medical services, and have abortions. However, we do so within a healthcare system that is often hostile to our very existence,” Jones said at the time. TransLash Media had just launched a series highlighting trans people's abortion stories. “By not including trans people in this fight, the overall reproductive justice is smaller and weaker.”
When it comes to protecting access to IVF (in vitro fertilization) and other reproductive technologies, respondents who identified as Democrats were more likely to want these medical interventions to be protected by elected officials, while Republicans are less likely to. Still, overall, according to the survey results, the vast majority of Americans do not support limitations on IVF – only 9 percent of respondents said they support IVF restrictions. And only 6 percent of respondents support limitations on birth control measures such as the pill or condoms. In general, restrictions on emergency contraception were also unpopular, but 22 percent of Republicans said would support those restrictions.
The 19th and SurveyMonkey found that 72 percent of Americans don’t believe that “politicians are informed enough about gender-affirming care for minors to make fair policy” which is in-line with numbers from the previous year. Drilling down further this year, The 19th and SurveyMonkey gave survey respondents this definition: “Gender-affirming care for transgender minors includes any kind of care designed to support and affirm their gender identity, including therapy, consultations with doctors, hormones or puberty blockers, other medication, and, rarely, surgery.”
60 percent of Americans “oppose the right of transgender minors to access gender-affirming care” – that is to say, they do not support lawmakers banning or restricting such healthcare. This is in-line with sentiments from recent Gallup polling data, which shows that while 51 percent of Americans think changing one’s gender is “morally wrong”, over 60 percent of American adults oppose laws banning gender-affirming care for minors.
Originally Appeared on Teen Vogue
