Study Claims Women Seeking Abortions in Pro-Life States Google It More Often
by Steven Ertelt
LifeNews.com Editor
August 31, 2010
Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) — A new study by two Boston Children’s Hospital doctors claims women seeking abortions from pro-life states Google the term abortion more often than others. Their suggestion is that women in places with fewer abortion centers and less access to abortion are more likely to search for it online.
Dr. Ben Reis and Dr. John Brownstein reviewed the abortion rates and policies of all 50 states and 37 counties. They reviewed that information against the number of Internet searches for the term, "abortion."
“In places where abortion access is readily available, people can go to their mainstream health care providers,” Reis told the Boston Herald newspaper.
He said “people may be going on the Internet to find alternate routes" in places that don’t have easy access to local abortion businesses and said the pattern was found in every states he and his colleague studied.
“We were actually very surprised. There is a very consistent, strong relationship,” Reis told the newspaper.
The study, published last week in the medical journal BMC Public Health, could have an impact on the pro-life community in that pro-life advocates and pregnancy centers reaching out on the Internet may want to focus on keyword advertising and local optimization to reach these women searching for abortion information online.
National Catholic Register writer Danielle Bean suggested that may be the case in a new article published about the study.
Bean believes the researchers published the study to help abortion businesses target women.
"The problem is that the doctors who conducted the study were not content to simply report facts. They needed a reason. And without one they could prove, they opted for conjecture. Conjecture that supports their pro-legalized-abortion agenda, of course,’ she said.
But Bean cites pro-life nurse Jill Stanek and readers of her blog for what she believes is a more realistic explanation of the results: "people research ‘abortion’ as a means of keeping up with important news, learning about our nation’s laws, or educating themselves about fetal development."
"In my Google account, I have a news page set to the keyword “abortion.” And it’s not because I am desperately trying to figure out how I can get myself one.
"To me, this ‘study’ and the doctor’s conjecture sound desperate. They need to keep coming up with ways to frighten people into believing we are a hair’s-breadth away from coat hangers and back alley abortions in which innocent pregnant women imperil their own lives in their determination to destroy their unborn children," Bean concludes. "Come on. Give us more credit than that."
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