Quantitative Findings
The mean age of the participants was 26.55 with a range of 18 to 54. Overall, 74.19% of respondents requested an abortion within the first seven-week of gestation. Only 11 out of 620 surveyors requested abortion with an LMP later than 70 days (10 weeks). 83.31% of the women in the study had at least one previous pregnancy and 32.57% of them had at least one child before their current gestation. In the sample, 74.87% of respondents indicated that they have never undergone an abortion before. 22% of them had a history of c-section. 355 (58.39%) surveyors reported not using any contraceptives prior to their current pregnancy while 219 (36.02%) participants reported contraceptive failure and 34 (5.59%) of them reported rape among the reasons for unwanted pregnancy. Only less than one percent of them were using an intrauterine device, a long-acting contraceptive method. When asked about access to formal healthcare services, 97.74% of them reported having a hospital within a sixty-minute drive. Table 1 summarizes the background characteristics of survey respondents.
The reasons for wanting an abortion were asked with a predefined list of reasons where individuals were allowed to choose all that applies. The responses are summarized in Table 2. 59.68% of respondents chose “I just cannot have a child at this point in my life” while 49.84% of them indicated “I have no money to raise a child.” The two runner-up reasons were “I want to finish school” as chosen by 197 participants (31.77%) and “I am too young” as chosen by 194 women (31.29%).
When the surveyors’ reasons for requesting abortion through Women on Web were asked, the most frequent barriers to formal services were detailed as cost by 48.31%, unavailability of medical abortion by 44.94%, need to keep their abortion a secret from their partner or family by 42.69%, and preference for an at-home abortion by 39.32% of the women. The responses are summarized in Table 3.