In a letter to Google’s CEO Sundar Pichai, 17 Republican attorneys general have warned the company against limiting search results for pro-life clinics, and threatened legal action of the company continues to do so.
We obtained a copy of the letter for you here.
The letter appears to be a response to another letter by Democrat lawmakers that urged the tech giant to limit the appearance of crisis pregnancy centers in search results of people looking for abortion clinics.
The letters by the pro-choice lawmakers cited research by Center for Countering Digital Hate, which found out that searches for “abortion pill” and “abortion clinic near me” returned results for pro-life pregnancy centers that help women.
“Directing women towards fake clinics that traffic in misinformation and don’t provide comprehensive health services is dangerous to women’s health and undermines the integrity of Google’s search results,” said the letter by the Democrats, which was sent in June, following the leak of the draft opinion to overturn Roe v. Wade.
GOP attorneys general have warned Google against enforcing the requests of the pro-choice lawmakers.
“Suppressing pro-life and pro-mother voices at the urging of government officials would violate the most fundamental tenet of the American marketplace of ideas,” the GOP attorneys general wrote in their letter.
The AGs noted that anti-abortion pregnancy centers provide important services like pregnancy tests, ultrasounds, and parenting classes for free, adding that “at least some” users searching for information on abortion expect to find alternative information.
They warned that if Google complies with the “inappropriate demand” from the Democrats to “bias” search results, their offices would take legal action, including investigating if such an action violates religious discrimination laws and antitrust.
“We trust that you will treat this letter with the seriousness these issues require, and hope you will decide that Google’s search results must not be subject to left-wing political pressure, which would actively harm women seeking essential assistance. If you do not, we must avail ourselves of all lawful and appropriate means of protecting the rights of our constituents, of upholding viewpoint diversity, free expression, and the freedom of religion for all Americans, and of making sure that our markets are free in fact, not merely in theory,” the letter said.
Google has 14 days to respond to the letter.
