A new report reveals that Google — the most widely-used search engine in the country — is directing people searching for abortion services to so-called “crisis pregnancy centers,” which seek to dissuade people from getting abortions.
According to Bloomberg News, Google Maps is misleading people searching for abortion services by including crisis pregnancy centers (CPCs) in their results. These dubious quasi-health centers, often run by religious organizations with far right views, use misinformation and fearmongering to persuade people not to get abortions. False claims pushed by CPCs include wrongly telling patients that abortions are linked to breast cancer or mental health issues, or telling patients that they have missed a state deadline to get an abortion, even when they haven’t.
On average across the United States, about a quarter of the top 10 search results for a person typing in “abortion clinics” are for a CPC instead, Bloomberg notes. In many states, the rate is much higher — in 13 states, Google Maps provides five or more CPCs in their top 10 search results for “abortion clinics.” In South Carolina and Arkansas, seven of the 10 results are for CPCs, and in Mississippi, CPCs make up nine out of 10 results.
Google responded to the Bloomberg report by claiming that it tries to address listings that violate its policies by posing as organizations that provide services that they don’t actually provide. But the issue has persisted — and these search results have the potential to place people seeking abortions in dangerous situations.
The publication spoke to patients who sought abortion clinics on Google Maps and were provided with results for CPCs instead. In one horrifying example, a patient named Chey, who chose not to disclose her full name, said that staffers at a CPC not only told her false information about abortion, but encouraged her to stay in an abusive relationship, claiming that having a child would fix her abusive partner.
“When my partner left the room, I mentioned that I was in an abusive relationship,” Chey said. “They told me that carrying a pregnancy could help repair my relationship, that it would cause my partner to step up as a man, and that I would find purpose in life again.”
Since the recent overturn of Roe v. Wade, many CPCs have relocated to states where abortion is still legal in order to continue peddling misinformation to unsuspecting patients who are seeking medical care.
Although several states have tightened restrictions on abortion or banned the procedure outright since Roe’s overturn, polling shows that Americans widely support the abortion protections that were recently rescinded by the Supreme Court.
A Navigator Research poll conducted from late July to early August found that 58 percent of voters want abortion to be legal, versus just 38 percent who say that it should be illegal. Fifty-four percent of respondents said that they disapproved of the Supreme Court’s ruling, with 58 percent adding that Roe’s overturn has made them more motivated to vote in the midterm elections this fall.
Truthout Is Preparing to Meet Trump’s Agenda With Resistance at Every Turn
Dear Truthout Community,
If you feel rage, despondency, confusion and deep fear today, you are not alone. We’re feeling it too. We are heartsick. Facing down Trump’s fascist agenda, we are desperately worried about the most vulnerable people among us, including our loved ones and everyone in the Truthout community, and our minds are racing a million miles a minute to try to map out all that needs to be done.
We must give ourselves space to grieve and feel our fear, feel our rage, and keep in the forefront of our mind the stark truth that millions of real human lives are on the line. And simultaneously, we’ve got to get to work, take stock of our resources, and prepare to throw ourselves full force into the movement.
Journalism is a linchpin of that movement. Even as we are reeling, we’re summoning up all the energy we can to face down what’s coming, because we know that one of the sharpest weapons against fascism is publishing the truth.
There are many terrifying planks to the Trump agenda, and we plan to devote ourselves to reporting thoroughly on each one and, crucially, covering the movements resisting them. We also recognize that Trump is a dire threat to journalism itself, and that we must take this seriously from the outset.
Last week, the four of us sat down to have some hard but necessary conversations about Truthout under a Trump presidency. How would we defend our publication from an avalanche of far right lawsuits that seek to bankrupt us? How would we keep our reporters safe if they need to cover outbreaks of political violence, or if they are targeted by authorities? How will we urgently produce the practical analysis, tools and movement coverage that you need right now — breaking through our normal routines to meet a terrifying moment in ways that best serve you?
It will be a tough, scary four years to produce social justice-driven journalism. We need to deliver news, strategy, liberatory ideas, tools and movement-sparking solutions with a force that we never have had to before. And at the same time, we desperately need to protect our ability to do so.
We know this is such a painful moment and donations may understandably be the last thing on your mind. But we must ask for your support, which is needed in a new and urgent way.
We promise we will kick into an even higher gear to give you truthful news that cuts against the disinformation and vitriol and hate and violence. We promise to publish analyses that will serve the needs of the movements we all rely on to survive the next four years, and even build for the future. We promise to be responsive, to recognize you as members of our community with a vital stake and voice in this work.
Please dig deep if you can, but a donation of any amount will be a truly meaningful and tangible action in this cataclysmic historical moment. We are presently looking for 231 new monthly donors in the next 2 days.
We’re with you. Let’s do all we can to move forward together.
With love, rage, and solidarity,
Maya, Negin, Saima, and Ziggy