Most U.S. hospitals omit abortion services from websites, study says
Oct. 16 (UPI) -- Most hospitals omit or hide information about abortion services on their websites, according to a study by researchers at the University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine and Harvard Medical School that was released Monday.
The study, published in the Annals of Internal Medicine, included 222 U.S. hospitals and found that 79.4% of their websites did not mention abortion.
"Our findings bring evidence to recent claims that hospitals have treated abortion care differently from other essential procedures, contributing to stigma surrounding abortion," wrote the authors, led by Dr. Ari Friedman, an assistant professor of emergency medicine at the University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine.
Researchers excluded hospitals in states with extreme abortion bans since the Supreme Court overturned its 1973 opinion in Roe vs. Wade in June 2022. Hospitals with specialized abortion training were included in the study.
The authors compared information about abortion services to that of colonoscopy, another common procedure. Only 11.1% of websites studies did not include information about colonoscopy.
The authors noted that Internet searches for "abortion near me" were five times more common than for "colonoscopy near me." That finding is consistent with earlier research that found abortion-related Internet searches surged during the week of the Dobbs vs. Jackson Women's Health Organization decision, which overturned Roe.
The study found that among hospital websites that included information about abortion, that information was found a half-page lower in search engine results. The researchers also noted that 89.8% of websites that included information about abortion omitted patient instructions for pre- or postprocedural care, compared with 42.2% of those with information about colonoscopy.
The study didn't determine which hospitals included in the research offer abortion care, but the researchers noted that 1 in 3 hospitals nationwide offer abortion services.
"In summary, our results suggest that hospitals and their health systems are not advertising abortion in a manner consistent with other outpatient procedures nor consistent with medical society statements that abortion is routine, essential health care," the authors wrote.
