Google finds innovative new method of exploitation
After a four-month runtime on the internet, Google has banned all of Live Action’s advertisements about the abortion pill reversal treatment. Promotions for the pro-life advocacy group’s Baby Olivia project, which provides a “medically accurate, animated glimpse of human life from the moment of fertilization,” were also temporarily blocked and later reinstated after complaints. Google’s attempt at censoring Live Action is sadly unsurprising given the tendency of Big Tech companies to cater to the whims of the abortion lobby. It demonstrates Google’s commitment to exploiting the vulnerable by any means necessary.
In response to the censorship controversy, Google defended itself by stating, “medical experts have raised serious concerns about abortion reversal pills.” This first claim relies on a drastic mischaracterization of the abortion pill reversal treatment. In reality, it is a simple dose of the hormone progesterone, which counteracts the anti-progesterone effects of the drug mifepristone (also known as Mifeprex, RU-486, or “the abortion pill”). Progesterone supplements are a common and highly successful treatment for women prone to miscarriage, which is what the chemical abortion regimen essentially causes.
Google went on to claim that “beyond protecting users from medical harm, our policies do not distinguish between promoting pro-choice and pro-life messages.” Despite its concern about women receiving information about abortion pill reversal, Google has not implemented similar censorship of promotions for the chemical abortion regimen. Ads for the regimen are still permitted despite the proven dangers, which include severe bleeding, infection, retained fetal parts, the need for emergency surgery, and even death.
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It is ironic that the Big Tech monarchs that are so concerned with paternalistically controlling the health care information women can access are so thoroughly unconcerned with the wellbeing of women being exploited through the chemical abortion regimen. Advertising mail-order abortion pills provide a direct avenue for women who are being sex trafficked, domestically abused, or otherwise exploited to receive abortions — either willingly or unwillingly — at home without ever being evaluated by a physician. Being seen by a medical professional is one way women trapped in exploitive situations are discovered and ultimately rescued.
For all its concern about women accessing information about reversing regretted abortions, Google appears to have overlooked the autonomy of the women working for it in forced labor camps. Google, along with other Big Tech giants such as Apple and Amazon, has been accused of utilizing the forced labor of Uyghur Muslims in concentration camps in the Xinjiang province of China. A report from the Australian Strategic Policy Institute included Google in its list of 82 popular companies that profit from the exploitation of Uyghur slaves in “abusive labour transfer programs as recently as 2019.”
Governor Abbott of Texas recently signed HB 20 in a move to prevent social media platforms from banning content based on political ideology. If the legislation is not blocked by a federal judge, like a similar Florida law was, it will take effect in November. As expected, representatives of Google, Facebook, and Twitter have pledged to oppose this legislation.
Big Tech’s hesitance to allow users of all viewpoints to express their beliefs begs the question of what exactly being “pro-choice” means when women are not aware of all the options they actually have. Women that use Google’s search engine to research the abortion pill reversal treatment are desperate for the freedom to reverse a mistaken choice.
When Big Tech companies attempt to censor information, the public should always question their motives and seek to identify what they stand to gain. If Google is willing to exploit the forced foreign labor of persecuted ethnic minorities and overlook sexual abuse in the United States, it is unlikely that its desire to block ads for abortion pill reversal is altruistically motivated by a concern for the wellbeing of women.
Originally published at the Family Research Council.
Joy Zavalick is Research Assistant for the Center for Human Dignity at Family Research Council.
