Searches for Self-Induced Abortion Per Year

Absolute search volumes are only available from Google AdWords, which does not include
categories. Thus, you have to manually enter every search.

This attempts to be an exhaustive search of searches for self-induced abortion using Google
AdWords.

Searches were found with the help of Google autocomplete and Google Trends.

It is possible I missed some searches with small volume, that do not show up on Google auto-
complete, which is why I say “at least 700,000.”

The data is found in AnnualAbortionSearches.csv

Searches for Abortion Clinics Per Year

Unlike with self-induced abortion, it is inconceivable to get this number with Google AdWords.
The reason is Google AdWords only includes absolute search volumes for exact searches.
There are about 630,000 searches for the exact phrase “abortion clinic(s).” However, this is
only a small percent of Google searches for abortion clinics. The reason is, many people make
searches for abortion clinics in particular places. They search for “abortion clinics in ohio” or
“abortion clinics in cincinnati.” It would be impossible to find all these permutations in Google
AdWords.
…
Google Trends includes data on rates of searches that include phrases. So, on Google Trends,
“abortion clinics” would include “abortion clinics in ohio” and “abortion clinics in cincinnati” and
“michigan abortion clinics.” However, there are not absolute volumes for these searches.
…
To back out the absolute volumes, then, I use the following strategy.
Compare rates of searches that include “abortion clinics” or “abortion clinic” to searches that
include “how to tie a tie.”
The vast majority of searches for “how to tie a tie ”are for the exact phrase.
Then compare the ratio to absolute search volumes for “how to tie a tie.”
…
In 2015, there were 35 searches that included “abortion clinic(s)” for every 67 searches that
included “how to tie a tie.” There were 6.6 million searches for “how to tie a tie.”
35/67*6.6 = 3.4 million.
…
Other, similar approaches suggested very similar numbers.

Searches for Self-Induced Abortion Over Time

These can be found on Google Trends. Google Trends has an interest category -- self-induced
abortion -- which is preferable than hand-coding if possible.

These searches include “cause a miscarriage,” “how to miscarriage,” “induce miscarriage,”

“induce aborion,” etc.

The annual data was found by this method and is in the file AnnualAbortionSearches.csv.

Search Rates for Self-Induced Abortion by State

The best way to do this would be to use the same Google category used for the time-series.
Indeed, this data would yield a map almost identical to the one used in the article. However, a
few states score a 0. This is not because they have no searches; it is because they are small
states and the searches do not rise above Google’s very high privacy threshold.
…
Instead, I create a bucket of searches based on Google Trends’ category and autocomplete and
use the strategy described in my racial animus paper.
…
The data can be found on SelfInducedAbortionByState.csv

Again, the map is virtually unaffected by the choices here.