To better understand barriers to abortion care in the U.S., we surveyed people searching for abortion care online through Google ads and followed-up with them 4 weeks later to learn whether they had obtained an abortion. The key findings obtained from this study led to several papers, each addressing a different research question. We found that restrictive state-level abortion policies are associated with not having an abortion at all, lack of insurance coverage for abortion is associated with prolonged abortion seeking, waiting period laws and 2-visit requirements are not significantly associated with increased decision certainty, CPC visits are associated with prolonged abortion seeking, and incidence of attempted self-managed abortion is higher among people facing barriers to abortion care.
This brief summarizes our methods and findings from The Google Ads Abortion Access Study. The research illustrates how state-level abortion policies and barriers impact an individual’s ability to obtain a wanted abortion.