Online Ads Skewing Search Results Latest Pro-Lifer Dirty Trick

COMMENTARY | An anti-abortion group is attempting to misdirect women who search for the term "abortion" via the Internet by purchasing premium Google ad space. Online for Life, a pro-life group, is apparently offended that when a woman searches Google with the keyword "abortion," she obtains results telling her how to go about getting one.

According to Life News, the pro-life group is hoping to save millions of unborn lives by targeting the ad space for those searching for abortion information.

"There are two paths for pregnant women who end up searching for abortions online. One leads to Planned Parenthood or another abortion provider, where 99% of the services offered to pregnant women is abortion," says the Life News article, generating more false news about Planned Parenthood and other abortion service providers.

In doing a quick search through Google using the keyword "abortion," the first three results I received were ads. These ads include American Women's Services (a women's health organization established in 1979), Allentown Women's Center (a reproductive health care center since 1978), and Teen Break (an organization that advises teenagers on everything from "hooking up" to abortion while providing pictures of aborted fetuses).

A search result for Planned Parenthood doesn't show up in any of the first three pages of my results. At that point, I stopped looking for it because I was appalled at the results I was getting. The first two results that were paid ads actually were helpful in finding a resource center where one could go for counseling, advice and health care services. The rest of the results were anti-choice links and not even medical ones. I did not get a medical center outside of the paid ads until page two, when I found a link for the U.S. National Library of Medicine.

Many places that pro-lifers, such as Online for Life, deem as solely abortion providers are not. In fact, many of them focus on women's health, and the majority of their services include STD testing, gynecological exams, birth control education, counseling services, cancer screenings, and then abortion services.

Online for Life tells Life News, "Instead of seeing an ad for an abortion clinic, some women see one for an Online for Life affiliated pregnancy center. At these centers women are counseled about a choice that's practically unspoken in an abortion clinic: life."

Yet another false statement meant to misdirect women. All of the abortion service providers that I found in my Google search and Planned Parenthood offer counseling before an abortion is provided, never force or coerce a woman to choose an abortion, and also offer references to adoption services. It should be noted also that only 3 percent of the services that Planned Parenthood provides are abortion services. The rest focus on women's reproductive health.

This is yet another attempt by a pro-life group to misdirect, misinform and take away a woman's right to choose. The only way a woman can choose whether "abortion" is right for her is to be well-informed about her choices. Paid ads by pro-life groups that alter search results and misdirect women from real information are an outrage and prevent women from making real, well-informed decisions about their own bodies.