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. 2024 Dec 18:6:100116.
doi: 10.1016/j.conx.2024.100116. eCollection 2024.

Adolescents' political and personal responses to recent policies restricting abortion and gender-affirming care

Madeline Quasebarth  1 , Vanya Manthena  1 , Sophie Knifton  1 , Lee Hasselbacher  1
Affiliations

Adolescents' political and personal responses to recent policies restricting abortion and gender-affirming care

Madeline Quasebarth et al. Contracept X. .

Abstract

Objectives: Restrictive policies on abortion and gender-affirming care have increased in recent years, particularly in some Midwest states, and can have a disproportionate impact on young people. We sought to explore adolescent perspectives on such policies.

Study design: We conducted virtual semistructured interviews with 39 participants aged 16 to 19 residing in the Midwest between April and June 2023, exploring participant reactions to state policies on abortion and gender-affirming care.

Results: Analysis revealed most participants opposed these restrictions, expressing concerns about the politicization of health care and the impact on their lives and the lives of loved ones. Policies also influenced future living decisions, with many expressing that a state's policies on abortion and gender-affirming care would impact whether they wanted to attend college or live there.

Conclusions: This study highlights the largely negative responses of young people who will be voting for the first time in the 2024 elections to restrictive policies on abortion and gender-affirming care in the Midwest.

Implication: Findings indicate that policy makers should take into account young peoples attitude towards gender affeiming care and abortion bans when conaidering future legislation.

Keywords: Abortion; Adolescent perspectives; Gender-affirming care; Qualitative; State policies.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this article.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
Gender identity policy tally and abortion laws in the Midwest in 2023. *The Gender Identity Policy Tally comes from https://www.lgbtmap.org/equality-maps, with high indicating more protections for gender identity and negative indicating restrictive protections on gender identity, while abortion policy comes from https://www.guttmacher.org/state-policy/explore/state-policies-abortion-bans. A low gender identity policy tally means that there are few to no policies around protections for gender-affirming care. Medium gender identity policy tally means that there are a medium number of protections for gender-affirming care. A high gender identity policy tally means that there are a large number of protections for gender-affirming care. A negative gender identity policy tally means that there are restrictive policies in place against gender-affirming care. Legal abortion policy indicates that abortion is legal but not protected in the state's constitution. Protected means that the state has added access to abortion into the state's constitution. Restrictive indicates that there are some types of abortion restrictions, generally around gestational limits. A total ban means that the state has a total abortion ban.
Fig. 2
Fig. 2
World cloud of participants feelings about abortion restrictions in a qualitative study of U.S. midwestern adolescents in 2023 (Word cloud created by tallying emotive words within relevant code excerpts).
Fig. 3
Fig. 3
World cloud of participants feelings about gender-affirming care restrictions in a qualitative study of U.S. midwestern adolescents in 2023 (Word cloud created by tallying emotive words within relevant code excerpts).
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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