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.