ENGLAND / NORTHERN IRELAND / IRELAND – A formative evaluation of online information to support abortion access in England, Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland

by DN Duffy, C Pierson, P Best

BMJ Sexual and Reproductive Health 4 September 2018

Web searches in mid-2016 using four search terms from the perspective of someone seeking abortion services found 619 web pages, 83 of which related to accessing services – 22 pages from Ireland, 31 from Northern Ireland, and 30 from England. Only 31 were judged good or excellent. The relevance of information retrieved varied. Almost half of all results in each country provided information that was either inaccurate within or irrelevant to the jurisdiction where the search took place. Online information will support abortion access only if information is relevant to the country in which users are based.