Alabama Congressman Jerry Carl sent a letter of concern to Google’s CEO and accused the tech company of pushing a pro-choice agenda after a Washington, DC pregnancy center was temporarily removed from Google Maps in November.
According to The Daily Signalusers who searched for Capitol Hill Crisis Pregnancy Center were given options for the Maryland pro-life pregnancy center and Planned Parenthood’s Carol Whitehill Moses Center.
After the Daily Signal inquired about the removal, Google reinstated the Capitol Hill Crisis Pregnancy Center, admitting it was improperly removed.
Congressman Carl said that removing the location of the pregnancy center on Google Maps is a threat to the health of women and children. In his letter to Google CEO Sundar Pichai, he expressed concerns about why the list was removed and asked if there were similar situations that had not been reported.
“Pro-life clinics should be listed on Google Maps under no circumstances, because women’s health and protecting the lives of the unborn are incredibly important to millions of Americans,” Carl wrote in a column in the Yellow Hammer News. “It’s even worse to redirect someone to the location of a clinic that performs abortions.”
Capitol Hill Crisis Pregnancy Center is a member of Care Net’s network of approximately 1,200 pregnancy centers across the United States and Canada. Janet Durig, director of the clinic, told The Daily Signal that she likes to think that what happened with Google Maps was an accident, but “I can’t imagine if it was intentional” considering the center’s recent history. In June of 2022, the Capitol Hill Crisis Pregnancy Center was defaced with red paint splattered on the front door and the words “Jane’s Revenge” sprayed on the building.
“It goes back to a complete misunderstanding of the broad services we offer to women in crisis pregnancy,” Durig said.
Carl, a supporter of pro-life legislation in Congress, called the recent incident involving the Capitol Hill Pregnancy Center an example of Google pushing its pro-choice agenda and promoting the views of left-wing organizations while silencing the opposing voices.
“Google has been accused of numerous incidents of suppressing or censoring pro-life and conservative views and content in the past, and this is yet another example,” he wrote in his column.
Google finds itself in a tug-of-war with pro-choice and pro-life lawmakers in the wake of the historic Dobbs decision to reverse Roe v. Wade. In June of 2022, a group of Democratic congressmen urged Google to limit the appearance of pregnancy centers in certain abortion-related search results, saying they provided misleading information about abortion and contraception. pregnancy
A month later, 17 Republican attorneys general warned Google that doing so could invite investigations and possible legal action.
“Complying with these demands would constitute an egregious assault on the principle of free speech…Suppressing pro-life and pro-mother voices at the instigation of government officials would violate that most fundamental principle of the American marketplace of ideas,” wrote the attorney general. in a letter to Pichai, CEO of Google.
The letter also cited a study that showed how pregnancy centers benefit local communities, serving more than 1.8 million clients in 2019, and providing services valued at $266 million at little or no cost to their patients.
In 2020, a report compiled by Republicans on the House Judiciary Committee focused on “Reining in Big Tech’s Censorship of Conservatives.”
“Time and time again, Big Tech has used its power to suppress and marginalize conservative voices,” the report said. “Evidence of both underlying bias and arbitrary censorship continues to mount, and these tendencies shape corporate policies and their enforcement.”
The report includes examples of views on life that are suppressed. In 2018, Twitter temporarily censored a paid political advertisement from Senator Marsha Blackburn. Twitter banned Blackburn’s campaign from promoting a video with pro-life language opposing “the sale of baby body parts,” deeming the language “inflammatory.”
The House report also details how Google temporarily labeled a pro-life film as “propaganda” in 2019. The filmUnplannedwhich focuses on the former director of a Planned Parenthood clinic who later began working as a pro-life activist.
“Taken together, the actions of Twitter, Google, YouTube, Facebook, and Amazon suggest consistent levels of bias and patterns of shifting censorship in Silicon Valley,” the report said.
