However, a new analysis published in The New York Times of Google searches finds a more harrowing correlation between women living in areas where it is difficult to get an abortion and the demand for self-induced abortion.
Seth Stephens-Davidowitz, PhD, an economist, New York Times op-ed contributor and former Google data scientist, analyzed Google searches regarding self-induced abortions and the states in which such terms were used for a search. In 2015, there were more than 700,000 Google searches inquiring about these “DIY” abortions.
Dr. Stephens-Davidowitz found states where there are either “hostile” or “very hostile” barriers to abortion, as determined by the Guttmacher Institute, also had above average percentages of women using Google to search for self-induced abortion methods.
Additionally, he found eight of the 10 states the Guttmacher Institute labeled as hostile or very hostile to abortion had the highest search rates for self-induced abortions. Telling of this trend is Mississippi, which has the highest rate of Google searches for self-induced abortion, and just one abortion clinic, Dr. Stephens-Davidowitz reports.
While it is unfair to label this correlation as direct causation, the data does indicate trends in demands for abortion.
“It will take years before researchers fully make sense of how to interpret this new data. But there is an unambiguous fact in Google search data that the eight justices of the Supreme Court and everyone else should know. In some parts of the United States, demand for self-induced abortion has risen to a disturbing level,” Dr. Stephens-Davidowitz concludes.
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