MARRIAGE, ABORTION, AND COMING OUT

Over the past two decades, legal protections for lesbian, gay, and bisexual individuals have dramatically expanded. Simultaneously, meaningful access to reproductive choice for women has eroded. What accounts for the different trajectories of LGBTQ rights and reproductive rights? This Piece argues t...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Columbia law review 2016-12, Vol.116 (8), p.126-151
Main Authors: Skinner-Thompson, Scott, Law, Sylvia A, Baran, Hugh
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Abortion
Bisexuality
Constitutional law
Couples
Equal rights
Females
Gays & lesbians
LGBTQ people
LGBTQ rights
LGBTQ rights movements
Marriage
Mass media
Mass media images
Minority groups
Popular culture
Pregnancy
Reproductive rights
Same sex marriage
Sexual minorities
Sexuality
State court decisions
Supreme Court decisions
United States
Womens rights
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Summary:Over the past two decades, legal protections for lesbian, gay, and bisexual individuals have dramatically expanded. Simultaneously, meaningful access to reproductive choice for women has eroded. What accounts for the different trajectories of LGBTQ rights and reproductive rights? This Piece argues that one explanation-or at least partial explanation,-for the a,dvance of LGBTQ rights relative to reproductive rights is the differing degree to which individuals have come out about their experiences with sexuality compared to coming out about experiences with unplanned pregnancies. In particular, as catalogued in this Piece, popular media portrayals of lesbian and gay individuals have proliferated, broadening the social and judicial understanding of minority sexualities. Meanwhile, popular media portrayals of women confronting unplanned pregnancies remain relatively sparse and, when they do appear, are often inaccurate and unrepresentative. The correlation between positive media portrayals of lesbian and gay individuals and judicial recognition of protections for sexual minorities suggests that in order to halt the erosion of reproductive rights, it will be important to expose society to people exercising their right to abortion on the screen, in the office, and at the kitchen table.
ISSN:0010-1958
1945-2268