Google misdirects one in 10 searches for abortion to 'pregnancy crisis centers'

Source: The Guardian

Google misdirects one in 10 searches for abortion to ‘pregnancy crisis centers’

In US ‘trigger states’ where the procedure may soon be illegal, searchers may be sent to centers that do not actually provide care

Kari Paul
Thu 9 Jun 2022 19.20 BST
Last modified on Thu 9 Jun 2022 20.21 BST

One in 10 Google searches for abortion services in US “trigger states”, where the procedure is likely to become illegal if the US supreme court overturns Roe v Wade, are being misdirected to clinics known as “pregnancy crisis centers” that do not actually provide care, according to a new study.

After a leak revealed the US supreme court is on the verge of overturning the landmark abortion rights law Roe v Wade, attention has turned to “trigger law” states that would ban abortion immediately if the decades-old decision is undone.

In more than a dozen such trigger-law states, researchers found, 11% of Google search results for “abortion clinic near me” and “abortion pill” led to “crisis pregnancy centers”, according to misinformation research non-profit Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH).

These clinics market themselves as healthcare providers but have a “shady, harmful agenda”, according to the reproductive health non-profit Planned Parenthood, offering no health services and aiming instead to dissuade people from having abortions.

Such centers now outnumber real abortion clinics three to one, ...

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Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/jun/09/google-searches-abortion-clinics-pregnancy-crisis-centers