A team of UConn researchers explores the disinformation landscape after Roe v. Wade was overturned
Last year, the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, a 1973 decision which guaranteed the right to access abortion services. Immediately following this decision, there was an outpouring of misinformation about abortion on social media.
Misinformation about abortion, including health consequences of abortion for the mother; how to perform potentially dangerous, at-home abortions; the idea that the fetus experiences pain during an abortion; that abortion is never used to save the life of the mother; and other false claims have proliferated in the wake of the court’s decision.
Sherry Pagoto, professor in the College of Agriculture, Health and Natural Resources, and Lindsay Palmer, a postdoctoral fellow on Pagoto’s team, recently published an article in Journal of Medical Internet Research outlining the current information landscape surrounding abortion in the U.S.
Currently, 14 states have enacted a total abortion ban. About half of all U.S. states are expected to implement some kind of abortion ban, making the misinformation trend especially alarming.
Connecticut implemented legislation almost immediately to become a legal “safe harbor” for women seeking abortions from other states and clinicians who perform them.
In their paper, the researchers, both from the Department of Allied Health Sciences, conclude that the current information environment for abortion...
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