To better understand where women in New South Wales are most struggling to access abortion, researchers led by the University of Sydney and the data visualisation specialist Ri Liu have mapped access to surgical abortion (a procedure undertaken in a clinical setting) and medication abortion (taking prescribed abortion pills) across the state.
The following maps use publicly available directories but it’s worth noting that not all abortion services were openly advertised or easy to find, providers can change and that the circumstances under which abortions were provided were not transparent. The project was inspired by US researchers, who first used the term “abortion desert” to describe places 100 miles (160km) or more from the nearest abortion service.
The Abortion Desert Map was developed by the Access All Areas research collective at the University of Sydney and Ri Liu, an independent data visualisation specialist. Access All Areas is led by Dr Anna Noonan (school of rural health) and Dr Madeleine Belfrage (Sydney social sciences and humanities advanced research centre). This iteration of the Abortion Desert Map was created in partnership with Guardian Australia
