A new analysis of Google Trends data shows that internet searches for self-managed abortions rose sharply in states that restricted the procedure last summer.
Three public health researchers published the study Wednesday in JAMA Surgery. They analyzed internet searches conducted from June 24 — the day the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade and returned jurisdiction over abortion to the states — to Sept. 8 last year, comparing the results across states where abortion was illegal as of Aug. 1.
According to the Google Trends relative popularity scale, which rates a search topic’s proportion to all internet searches in a given place and time out of 0-100, searches for “how to miscarriage” scored 72.72 in states where abortion was illegal except when necessary to save the mother’s life. That included Alabama and Arkansas.
By comparison, searches for the same phrase scored only 44.76 out of 100 in relative popularity in blue states where abortion is legal, including Washington and California. The study excluded Vermont, Alaska, South Dakota and Washington, D.C., due to their lack of Google Trends data.
The study could help officials watch out for women who “seek unsafe alternative methods of terminating pregnancy” due to state abortion bans, the researchers said. They noted that 7% of women in the U.S. have tried a do-it-yourself abortion.
“These data might be helpful to identify trends in unsafe abortion methods,” the researchers wrote. “Commonly used self-managed abortion practices (e.g., herbal remedies or infliction of blunt trauma) may cause harm to women who seek to terminate their pregnancy.”
Using anonymous data, the study looked at five keyword searches related to self-managed abortions: “how to miscarriage,” “how to do an abortion,” “where can I get an abortion,” “how to get rid of pregnancy” and “abortion clinics near me.”
Researchers also used several control phrases: “how to take Tylenol (Johnson & Johnson),” “how to lower blood pressure,” “how to get rid of headache” and “primary care doctors near me.”
The study warned that an uptick in self-managed abortions could lead to increased emergency room visits in red states for side effects such as sepsis and poisoning, putting strain on “crowded hospitals and overwhelmed health care systems.”
The researchers acknowledged several limitations to the study, including its inability to track people without internet access and failure to consider possible changes in contraception habits following the state ban.
“Shifts in abortion legality may have affected contraception, and contraception-related control variables were not considered,” they wrote. “Future research on use of search engine data, in collaboration with industry partners that own the data, may improve research and assessment of clinical impact of these approaches and reduce the consequences of unsafe abortions.”
According to some pro-life advocates, the jury is also out on whether internet search trends offer any meaningful predictors of behavior regarding abortion.
“Interest alone does not always lead to action,” said Evangeline Faussie, a spokeswoman for the Clare Boothe Luce Center for Conservative Women.
The fact that the mainstream media has not reported any deaths from self-induced abortions in the year since Dobbs suggests fear of back-alley abortions could be misplaced, added Michael New, an assistant professor of social research at the Catholic University of America in the District of Columbia.
“Internet searches are a methodologically poor way to measure human activity,” said Mr. New, who studies abortion statistics. “The fact that this JAMA Surgery study purportedly found a high number of internet searches for self-induced abortions tells us very little about the actual incidence of self-induced abortions.”
• Sean Salai can be reached at ssalai@washingtontimes.com.