An Oct. 16 study published in the Annals of Internal Medicine reveals that many hospitals either exclude or conceal details regarding abortion services on their websites.
The study, led by researchers from the University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine in Philadelphia and Harvard Medical School in Boston, analyzed the public-facing websites of 222 U.S. hospitals and found that 79.4% of their websites did not mention abortion.
The researchers noted that, when abortion was referenced, the information typically appeared 0.5 pages lower in search engine results than information on colonoscopies. When comparing information about abortion services to that of colonoscopy, hospital websites only described offering abortion care 6.3% of the time, in contrast to the 85.6% rate for colonoscopy.
"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 of the study wrote.