Asian American, Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander women contend with major barriers to accessing reproductive health information, with almost half of respondents saying that they did not know where to access medication abortion if they needed it, a new report shows.
The study, released by nonprofits National Asian Pacific American Women’s Forum and Ibis Reproductive Health on Tuesday, said that cultural taboos and insufficient culturally relevant care and information have contributed to the continued limited knowledge about medication abortion, which accounts for more than half of all abortions in the United States.
“It’s been in the news. It’s been everywhere and what it signals to me is, we’re not doing enough to educate the public,” Isra Pananon Weeks, interim executive director of NAPAWF, said referring to the recent Supreme Court decision preserving nationwide access to an abortion pill. “It’s important to organize in-language to reach people.”
Researchers found that 47% of respondents did not know where to access medication abortion. Another 40% reported having no prior knowledge about the safety of the procedure. And just more than a third of respondents said they had not heard, or didn’t know if they had heard, of medication abortion at all.
Previous research shows that at 85%, Asian American and Pacific Islander women are overwhelmingly in support of women being able to make their own reproductive choices.
The study, the first to look into attitudes and experiences around medication abortion for these communities, included data for a sample of 1,500 women and transgender, nonbinary or gender expansive people between 16-49, as well as in-depth interviews and focus group discussions.
Those born in the U.S. had a greater chance of hearing about the abortion method at 73%, while 58% of foreign-born respondents had previously heard of it. A number of participants brought up misinformation around the issue in their communities….
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