Google asked by US lawmakers to correct abortion research leading women to 'wrong clinics'

 US lawmakers have asked Alphabet's main Google search engine to provide accurate results to people who want an abortion, instead of sometimes sending them to "crisis pregnancy centers" that keep women away from procedures.

The request came in a letter whose primary signatories were Sen. Mark Warner and Rep. Elissa Slotkin, which was sent to Google on Friday and first reported by Reuters.

The letter was prompted by a study released last week by the nonprofit Center for Countering Digital Hate. The study found that 11% of search results for “abortion clinic near me” or “abortion pill” in some states were for anti-abortion centers.

The investigation was conducted in the 13 states with laws that would ban abortion if, as expected, the US Supreme Court accepted the landmark 1973 case of Roe v. Wade, which legalized it nationwide earlier this month.

Google declined to comment on the letter to Sundar Pichai, Alphabet's chief executive officer, but said of the report, "We're always looking for ways to improve our results to help people find what they're looking for.", or to understand what they are looking for because it may not be available."

The letter was signed by 14 senators and seven members of the United States House of Representatives. All are Democrats.

Crisis pregnancy centers, which have existed in one form or another for years, reflect the disagreements in the United States over the right to abortion. Some of these centers have been accused of giving women inaccurate information about their pregnancy, which can affect their access to abortion.

"Google should not display fake abortion clinics or crisis pregnancy centers," lawmakers wrote. "If we want Google to continue showing these misleading results... the results should at least be appropriately flagged," they wrote.

Google has treated other health issues differently. Research on suicide or sexual assault is complemented by a curated list of resources and trusted sources.

The research group also found that in the states they studied, 28% of Google ads were for abortion centers, as were 37% of results on Google Maps. The letter said some centers had liability waivers, but not all. Referral Link