| 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) Will you sign our petition demanding that Google stop selling ads to fake health clinics?
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? 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)
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Courage California (formerly Courage Campaign) makes sure our democracy works for ALL of us by fighting corruption in California politics. We believe the solution lies in exposing and solving systemic problems through strategic organizing, enhancing coordination between progressive organizations, and mobilizing civic engagement from our communities, particularly voters of color, young voters, and self-identified progressives. The 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. Courage California Institute is a 501c(3) non-profit organization. Contributions or gifts to Courage California Institute are tax deductible within IRS guidelines. http://act.couragecampaign.org/go/4731?t=12&akid=14247%2E3168579%2E_RfmyM |
