Is Sexual Orientation Linked to Risk for Experiencing Sexual Violence?

Poor-quality data suggest that sexual minority women (i.e., bisexual, lesbian, and other nonheterosexual) are more likely to have unintended pregnancies resulting in abortion than heterosexual women. To expand this limited knowledge, investigators conducted an observational study using data from the Guttmacher Institute's 2014 Abortion Patient Survey, a random sample of 8380 respondents nationally representative of women undergoing nonhospital abortions in the U.S.

The vast majority of respondents provided information on their sexual identity, with 4.1% identifying as bisexual, 1.1% as “something else” (an open-ended response), and 0.4% as lesbian. Exposure to sexual violence was significantly more common in the three sexual minority groups …