AAPI Women are Often Missing from the Abortion Conversation: Here’s What the Data Actually Shows

COMMENTARY

AAPI Women are Often Missing from the Abortion Conversation: Here’s What the Data Actually Shows

By Fajer Saeed Ebrahim
July 9, 2026

Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) women are too often missing from national abortion conversations, especially at a moment when policies are rapidly reshaping access to care and people’s ability to make decisions about their own bodies.

When we are included, it’s often as part of a single, oversimplified narrative that flattens the lived realities of our communities. That lack of nuance shows up in policy, where our voices are too often overlooked.

Disaggregated data helps change that. When we invest in it, we start to see a clearer, more honest picture of how AAPI women are navigating abortion, and what it will take to ensure our communities are seen, heard, and reflected in the policies that impact our lives.

That’s exactly what we set out to do in NAPAWF’s new report, Beyond the Labels: AAPI Women on Abortion Care, Dignity, and Criminalization.

This is the largest national, multilingual, disaggregated study of AAPI women’s views on abortion to date, capturing perspectives across more than 25 ethnic communities, and what we found challenges many of the assumptions often made about our communities.

Eighty-six percent of AAPI women believe it is important to protect the rights of people who are pregnant or could become pregnant. That alone should shift how people think about where our communities stand. But before dissecting their beliefs, it’s important to get a clearer picture of how AAPI women understand abortion in the first place.

AAPI women view abortion as healthcare, not politics

Across more than 1,400 survey respondents and multilingual focus groups, there is strong alignment around core values. Nearly two-thirds (65%) of AAPI women believe abortion should be legal, and 84% agree that people should be able to make their own abortion decisions without government interference.

But what stood out most to me is how respondents describe abortion: only 4% view it as a political issue.

AAPI women overwhelmingly associate abortion with personal decision-making, human rights, safety, and freedom. This distinction matters as it shows how disconnected dominant political narratives are from how people actually experience this issue in their lives.

At the same time, the data also reinforces something we’ve known for a long time: that AAPI communities are not a monolith. Differences in ethnicity, immigration history, and religion shape how people navigate these conversations, even with alignment on autonomy and dignity.

A widening information gap is undermining access

Despite broad support for abortion access, awareness of abortion laws is limited.

Only 19% of AAPI women say they know a lot about their state’s abortion laws. While 60% say they know at least “some,” our qualitative research tells a more concerning story: many participants living in states with abortion bans were unaware that those bans existed.

There’s also a disconnect between concern and perceived risk. Three-quarters of AAPI women express concern about laws that punish people who seek or provide abortion care, yet far fewer believe severe outcomes like arrest are very likely.

Part of this may be explained by how people are consuming information. Nearly half (46%) of respondents report passively “coming across” news rather than actively seeking it out. In a digital environment where passive consumption is the norm, how information is delivered becomes just as important as the information itself.

If AAPI women are not receiving timely, accessible, and culturally relevant information, then even strong support for abortion access won’t translate into urgency or informed decision-making.

Cultural barriers and fear still shape access, even where abortion is legal

Policy awareness is only part of the picture. Social and cultural dynamics also play a major role in how AAPI women form their views on abortion.

Nearly three-quarters (74%) of respondents cite judgment from family or community as a barrier to accessing abortion care, and 60% say it is difficult to talk about abortion openly. Shame, stigma, and cultural expectations continue to shape how and whether these conversations happen.

Immigration-related concerns add another layer. While not always the primary barrier, they influence how risk is perceived. Sixty-four percent of AAPI women believe it is likely that someone could be detained or deported for seeking abortion care. Criminalization does not have to be widespread to be effective—its power lies in the fear it creates.

Trusted messengers are critical in a fragmented information landscape

Trust is critical when navigating abortion access, especially in an environment shaped by stigma, misinformation, and rapidly changing laws.

For many AAPI women, trusted messengers are not national headlines or political figures, but people rooted in care and community. Medical professionals and those with lived experience consistently emerge as the most credible sources of information. Nearly 80% of respondents trust doctors, while roughly three-quarters trust community clinics, nurses, and people with lived experience.

In multilingual, culturally diverse communities where stigma and silence persist, trusted messengers are often the bridge between confusion and clarity. Without accessible, culturally relevant information, misinformation fills the gap, and even strong support for abortion access may not translate into informed views or action.

The path forward 

AAPI women’s perspectives on abortion cannot be reduced to a single narrative or policy lens; they are diverse and shaped by culture, language, immigration status, and lived experience. But across that diversity, there are shared values: a belief in autonomy, a rejection of criminalization, and a clear understanding that abortion is healthcare.

The challenge is not just whether policy reflects these values, but whether it accounts for the barriers shaping people’s decisions, including stigma, misinformation, and fear of criminalization.

For policymakers, this means moving beyond a narrow focus on legality alone. It requires investing in disaggregated, multilingual data so AAPI communities are no longer invisible in decision-making; closing the information gap through culturally sensitive, community-rooted outreach; and addressing the chilling effects of criminalization that shape behavior even in places where abortion remains legal.

If policy is to reflect people’s realities, it must be grounded in data that captures the full complexity of their lives and responsive to the barriers they actually face.

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Fajer Saeed Ebrahim is Senior Director of Policy at NAPAWF, where she leads the organization’s policy department. Before joining NAPAWF, she worked as a senior advisor at the Coalition to Expand Contraceptive Access and as a consultant for the White House Initiative on Asian Americans, Native Hawaiians, and Pacific Islanders under the Biden administration. She is also Vice Chair of the Guttmacher Institute’s Board of Directors.