WITHDRAWN: "Am I the Only One Who Feels like This?" an Examination of the Emotional and Practical Needs Expressed Online By People Seeking Abortion

Backgrounds and purpose: Although abortion is legal, common, and safe, it is both highly stigmatized and difficult to access. Numerous obstacles impede access to abortion care, including logistical barriers such as cost and transportation, limited clinic availability, and state-mandated ultrasounds and waiting periods that necessitate multiple appointments. Additionally, useful information can be hard to access, given widespread cultural misperceptions about abortion, the presence of crisis pregnancy centers, and state-mandated counseling practices that present medically inaccurate information to people seeking abortion. To overcome these barriers, many people seeking abortion turn to anonymous online forums, including Reddit, for information and support. Examining this community provides an unprecedented perspective on the questions, thoughts, and needs of people considering or undergoing an abortion.

Methods: The study team web-scraped 250 posts from subreddits that contain abortion-related posts, excluding posts from outside the U.S. or that exclusively sought medical information. We coded de-identified posts using a combined deductive/inductive approach. We identified a subset of these codes in which users were giving/seeking information and giving/seeking advice on Reddit. We then engaged in a targeted analysis of this “advice ecosystem” and analyzed what users aimed to receive or contribute through their posts.

Results: Users posted before, during (for medical abortion patients), and after their abortion experiences. Four salient, interconnected themes emerged: 1) seeking or providing emotional comfort or practical support, 2) confirmation that someone’s experience was medically or emotionally “normal,” 3) discussion and combat of abortion stigma, and 4) affirmation of the importance of the online community. Many posters who emphasized the benefits they gleaned from the forum returned to share their experience post-abortion to provide others with the information that had benefited them.

Conclusions and Implications: This analysis of anonymous Reddit posts accessed dimensions of the abortion experience that have not been captured in the prior literature, in surveying a larger group of people (those who consider abortions, those who have self-managed/at-home abortions, and those who visit a clinic for their abortion) and in collecting information throughout an abortion experience. This analysis exposes a variety of patient needs, including medical questions, system navigation assistance, and emotional comfort. It further reveals a need for a supportive, stigma-free community in which people can process their abortion decision and experience, in addition to clinical/professional supports.

While social work education rarely covers abortion care and ethics, more than one in four U.S. women will seek this reproductive healthcare service during their lives. Our study informs clinical and educational materials to better prepare social workers in supporting individuals regarding abortion decisions and experiences. Additionally, our study underscores the important role social workers could play in advocating for safe, accessible abortion care.