Reproductive Health and Semantics: Representations of Abortion in Semantic Models and Search Applications

Abstract

Health care-related queries are a common source of information seeking online, and, in light of the June 2022 U.S. Supreme Court decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, information concerning reproductive health in the United States is now of particular interest. Increasingly, search applications turn to semantic models to assist in responding to user queries, with the knowledgebase Wikidata playing a prominent role. However, Wikidata’s representation of topics around reproductive health care, as well as the implications for user searches, are currently unclear. To further examine this, the present study analyzed Wikidata’s treatment of abortion, compared this to representations in three medical domain models, and tested web searches to gauge Wikidata’s influence on search results. Results show that, as a semantic model, Wikidata attempts to represent topics around abortion in a manner that is at once both multi-perspective and simplified, leading to logical inconsistencies when compared to domain models. Wikidata’s influence on semantically supported web search is more difficult to ascertain as search engines’ treatment of abortion appears purposely exceptional, though a strong influence from Wikipedia was noted. Findings from this study demonstrate the importance of how semantic models address the medical and health domain, and suggest the need for greater transparency in how health care information is treated within web search applications.