Friend,

Imagine you live in Roseville, California, and discover that you’re
unintentionally pregnant. You’re young, scared, and not sure what to do.
You google “emergency abortion Roseville.” And this is the first result
you see:

You think this clinic will help you, and you make an appointment right
away -- but when you get there, there aren’t doctors or abortion services.
Instead, there are “counselors” who tell you that your abortion will cause
cancer, or break up your relationship, or prevent you from having children
in the future. They may show you an altered ultrasound image, or even
promise unscientific procedures like “abortion pill reversal.”

These fake health clinics outnumber actual abortion providers in
California, and they spend millions of dollars a year on Google ads to
ensure people find them instead of legitimate health care providers.(1)

[ [link removed] ]Will you sign our petition demanding that Google stop selling ads to
fake health clinics?

[ [link removed] ]SIGN ON

Efforts to stop them in California have been stymied by the Supreme Court,
and the more laws our legislators pass to protect abortion, the more money
flows from the anti-abortion coalition to establish these fake health
clinics and keep people from not accessing their reproductive rights.(2)
And because of the provider shortage, fake health clinics outnumber
abortion clinics in much of California by 11 to 2.(3)

These fake clinics run ads that show in response to more than 15,000
search terms, including “abortion provider near me” and even “Planned
Parenthood.”(4) The search responses make it seem like the clinics provide
abortions, and patients sometimes don’t discover otherwise until they’ve
been in the clinic for hours.

Once in the clinic, patients are subjected to fake statistics, forced
ultrasounds, and humiliation. Other crisis pregnancy centers pretend to
schedule an abortion and then string patients along until they are past
the point of legally accessing one. A study showed that pregnant people
who were seeking an abortion were less than half as likely to obtain one
once they’ve visited a crisis pregnancy center.(5)

Google says that it labels ads for these fake health clinics, but analysis
shows that the labels are not being applied to many of the clinics, and
they’re not clear even when they are present.(6) People are being hurt by
these fake clinics -- but Google is happy to pocket the more than $10
million a year it earns from these ads.(7)

California is a major center for Google, and we can pressure the company
into stopping ads for fake health clinics altogether. Will you tell Google
to stop running these ads?

[ [link removed] ]Click here to tell Google to stop running ads for fake health clinics!

Thank you for joining the fight.

–Irene, along with Angela, Annie, Isidra, Jen, Lindsay, and Scottie (and
the rest of the Courage team)

[ [link removed] ]SUPPORT THIS CAMPAIGN

Footnotes:
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Courage California Institute is the educational arm of the Courage California family of organizations. Our mission is to defend and extend human rights through innovative leadership-development training, strategic research and public-education.

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