Google Filtering Pro-Life Pregnancy Center Results When People Search for Abortion Clinics

Google has changed its search results to distinguish pro-life pregnancy centers from abortion clinics in search results for people dealing with crisis pregnancies.

The tech giant changed the results after complaints from Democrat lawmakers.

On Thursday, Democrat Senator Mark Warner posted a letter he received from Google confirming that they were altering search results.

To please the abortion advocates, Google wrote that “in order to run ads on Search that target keywords or phrases related to getting an abortion, advertisers in the United States must complete our abortion certification process and verify whether they do or do not provide abortions.”

“Based on the information provided in the certification process, an in-ad disclosure will show: ‘Provides abortions’ or ‘Does not provide abortions.’ For example, ads from organizations that provide pregnancy tests, abortion counseling, or otherwise serve pregnant individuals — but do not provide abortions — will display the relevant disclosure making that clear,” the letter continued. “If an advertiser is not certified, it is not able to run ads using keywords related to obtaining an abortion in the United States.”

Those policies have been in place since 2017, but Google said that they are doing even more now.

“For example, we recently updated these disclosures to make them more noticeable,” the letter continued. “We have also updated our abortion certification and disclosures policy to clarify that advertisers that provide medication abortions or abortion pills — but do not dispense them to customers at their own facilities — may be certified as advertisers that provide abortions and have their ads labeled with the ‘Provides abortion’ disclosure. Our goal is to help ensure ads transparently provide the information users need to decide which reproductive health services are most relevant to them.”

Now, those who search for “abortion clinics near me” will only see facilities that have been verified to provide abortions in the Local Search results box on Google, unless they affirmatively choose to see additional results.

Pregnancy centers offer free medical and financial support to pregnant women while providing them with information on options other than abortion. Pro-abortion activists claim that the crisis pregnancy centers “trick” women into not aborting their babies because their physicians do not offer the procedure.

“I welcome the changes that Google has announced today so that women seeking abortion services aren’t directed towards fake clinics that traffic in misinformation and don’t provide comprehensive health services. Importantly, this isn’t about silencing voices or restricting speech – it’s about returning search results that accurately address a user’s query and giving users information that is relevant to their searches,” said Sen. Warner in a statement.

The changes come as pregnancy centers nationwide are being threatened and targeted. Catholic Vote is tracking the attacks on churches and pregnancy centers since the Supreme Court draft opinion overturning Roe v. Wade leaked in early May.

As of August 27, the organization has tracked 66 attacks.

Marjorie Dannenfelser, SBA Pro-Life America president, accused Democrats and tech platforms of demonizing the centers, in a statement provided to the Washington Times.

“Google‘s motto used to be ‘Don’t be evil.’ Big Tech companies should be ashamed for colluding with the abortion industry to promote abortion, scare women and create a cloud of stigma around pregnancy centers,” she said.

“These community-based nonprofits provide critical resources to empower women that abortion giants like Planned Parenthood simply don’t,” Dannenfelser continued. “Yet despite polling that shows both pro-life and pro-choice Americans overwhelmingly support pregnancy centers, Democrats smear them as ‘fake’ – fueling vandalism and other hateful attacks – and even threaten to shut them down.”

 

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