Green Energy

You Must Abort or We’ll Take You to Court

From Zombie at PJM:

Not aborting fetuses will soon be a crime in San Francisco.
At least that’s what the city government is pushing for in its bizarre new attack on pregnancy counseling centers.
Actually, “bizarre” is too mild a word to describe San Francisco’s latest outburst; even from my pro-choice perspective, the city’s attempt to essentially banish any counseling center which doesn’t encourage or perform abortions is simply beyond belief.
Yesterday, City Attorney Dennis Herrera and Supervisor Malia Cohen acting on behalf of the municipal government launched a “coordinated attack” on pregnancy counseling centers that didn’t provide or advocate for abortions:
San Francisco leaders are launching a coordinated attack against what they call “one of the most serious threats to reproductive rights today” — so-called crisis pregnancy centers that advertise as though they provide abortions, but counsel against them.
In a joint press conference with Supervisor Malia Cohen, City Attorney Dennis Herrera said the “right-wing, politically motivated centers” use false advertisements to target vulnerable populations and can cost women valuable time as they decide whether or not to end a pregnancy.
“Women’s reproductive rights are under assault,” Herrera said.
The two officials both took action against the centers Tuesday: Cohen introduced legislation that would prohibit centers from making misleading statements about the services they provide, while Herrera took the first step toward legal action against a center he accused of doing just that.
…
Cohen’s bill, which was co-sponsored by supervisors David Chiu, Jane Kim and Scott Wiener, would give centers that use misleading advertisements 10 days to correct the problem. After that, the organizations would either be fined or given a court order requiring them to comply.
Also on Tuesday, Herrera sent a letter to First Resort, a San Francisco center whose advertising he described as “particularly egregious.”
First Resort’s sponsored advertisement appears in the results of a Google search for the terms “abortion” and “San Francisco”.
When women search for terms like “abortion” and “San Francisco,” a Google ad sponsored by First Resort appears, even though the organization does not provide abortions or referrals for them, Herrera said.
The letter asks First Resort to change its advertisements and website by the end of August to clarify that it does not provide abortion services.
Hold on just a moment. Everybody freeze. What exactly is “First Resort” accused of doing wrong? Buying a Google ad? Let’s look at the specifics.
If you scour First Resort’s Web site, nowhere do they claim that they provide abortions, or even advocate for abortions. In fact, quite the opposite: they use various code words like “values” and “adoption” which make it pretty clear they’re coming from a “keep the baby” perspective in their counseling.
So what’s the problem? San Francisco’s municipal government apparently had a conniption fit over the placement of First Resort’s Google ad. In particular, if you Google the words “abortion” and “San Francisco,” the very top result is a listing for the First Resort clinic:

Does the ad itself say that First Resort provides abortions? No. Does it even mention abortions? No. It just says “First Resort – Unplanned Pregnancy.” Nothing more. But gosh darn it, the ad pops up if someone does a Google search!
Now, I’m not enough of an expert on Google Ads to know how the placement works. Does First Resort get a good placement simply because of an automated relevancy algorithm built into the Google search engine? Or did First Resort give Google money specifically so that they would get high placement in various search term combinations?

Go read the whole thing at PJM.

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