Google loophole allows anti-abortion clinics to post deceptive ads

‘Crisis pregnancy centers’ seek to discourage women from getting abortions by ‘deceiving them about services they do or do not offer’

Stephanie Kirchgaessner
@skirchy Email
Mon 19 Aug 2019 07.00 BST Last modified on Mon 19 Aug 2019 11.51 BST

A new Google policy that was meant to rein in deceptive advertising by “crisis pregnancy centers” has a loophole that is allowing the centers to continue to post misleading ads on the search engine.

Crisis pregnancy centers often seek to aggressively discourage women from getting abortions and have earned the ire of abortion rights groups for often seeming to resemble abortion clinics.

The loophole means only users who are specifically searching under the term “abortion” will be provided information on Google’s website about whether a particular health care clinic does – or does not – offer the procedure to women.

If a user searches under other terms, like “free pregnancy test” or “pregnancy symptoms”, no such information appears under the advertisements for the same clinics. While the difference might seem semantic, there is a worry that it will confuse women who might mistake a crisis pregnancy center for an abortion clinic.

The ability of crisis pregnancy centers to influence possibly vulnerable women with false information is seen by pro-choice advocates as a significant challenge at a time when access to legal abortion is being curtailed in many states across the US.

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