Googling 'abortion clinic near me'? The top result often an anti-abortion clinic • Hacker News Board

Re: Googling 'abortion clinic near me'? The top result often an anti-abortion clinic

#131

Post by civilitty » Thu, Jun 22, 2023, 4:26 PM UTC

docandrew wrote: post #74

growingkittens wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not the reality, though. Anti-choice entities pretend to be legitimate clinics to draw people in.

Don’t abortion clinics do the same thing? Planned Parenthood isn’t called Planned Unparenthood. The whole abortion industry is based on euphemisms like your use of “choice” to avoid describing what’s really taking place.

Planned Parenthood isn't in the "abortion industry." The vast majority of its work is supplying birth control, STD testing, cancer screening, and a bunch of general health care for women and poor families. They're the ones that happen to have expertise working with adoption agencies, not pregnancy crisis centers.

Almost half of Planned Parenthood's funding comes from the government via Medicaid and due to the Hyde Act, none of it can even be used for abortions. Most of the rest of their funding is literally for family planning. It's in the name!

Next time you or a partner need some sort of reproductive services, whether that's condoms, an STD test, or prenatal vitamins, you can go to Planned Parenthood and get it for free nationwide. The only reason to go to your GP and use your insurance is its faster and the results go directly to your doctor.

Re: Googling 'abortion clinic near me'? The top result often an anti-abortion clinic

#132

Post by TheRealDunkirk » Thu, Jun 22, 2023, 4:47 PM UTC

afavour wrote: post #128

TheRealDunkirk wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And I have absolutely no idea how Google is supposed to do that in this context without making a human decision, based on morals, and then you accuse me of injecting morality into the discussion. How can you not see how confusing this is? I'm looking inside, and I just see that you're talking out of both sides of your mouth.

I do not understand why you keep going back to morals here. Google's ad policy is very, very clear: > We don’t allow ads or destinations that deceive users by excluding relevant product information or providing misleading information about products, services, or businesses. These anti-abortion activist ads provide misleading information about the products and/or services they provide. No moral judgement required: the…

And I can't understand how you keep trying to say that this doesn't involve morals. FTFA, only 38% of these "centers" do not provide any sort of abortion services at all. Fine. Throw them out. But what about the other 60%? They apparently do perform abortions. Do they just get a pass at that point?

What if they do so only in the cases of "the life of the mother," and try to talk people out of it in every other circumstance? Do they still qualify to win auctions on those keywords? The article itself makes it very clear that this whole decision tree is problematic and requires human pruning. Once you start down this road of vetting whether a clinic is offering abortions or not, there's going to be a bunch of grey-area cases that need to be decided, and those decisions are implicitly moral in the general case.

The nature of the search question itself is moral to start out with. Should "abortions near me" return results including "crisis centers" -- if it's really a "health care" or "pro-choice" question -- or is that search really code for "where can I get a DNC for the least money and hassle?" There are morals involved in every part of this topic.

Re: Googling 'abortion clinic near me'? The top result often an anti-abortion clinic

#133

Post by afavour » Thu, Jun 22, 2023, 4:53 PM UTC

TheRealDunkirk wrote: post #132

afavour wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I do not understand why you keep going back to morals here. Google's ad policy is very, very clear: > We don’t allow ads or destinations that deceive users by excluding relevant product information or providing misleading information about products, services, or businesses. These anti-abortion activist ads provide misleading information about the products and/or services they provide. No moral judgement required: the…

And I can't understand how you keep trying to say that this doesn't involve morals. FTFA, only 38% of these "centers" do not provide any sort of abortion services at all. Fine. Throw them out. But what about the other 60%? They apparently do perform abortions. Do they just get a pass at that point? What if they do so only in the cases of "the life of the mother," and try to talk people out of it in every other circum…

> FTFA, only 38% of these "centers" do not provide any sort of abortion services at all. Fine. Throw them out.

That's literally the point I've been making the entire time. I can't believe it took us this long to get here.

I'm off to do something more productive with my day, later.

Re: Googling 'abortion clinic near me'? The top result often an anti-abortion clinic

#134

Post by drewcoo » Thu, Jun 22, 2023, 7:08 PM UTC

prepend wrote: post #40

afavour wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In what way are these situations comparable? If you google GitHub you’re probably looking for source control. GitLab offers source control. If you google “abortion providers” you’re looking to get an abortion. The ads you see are specifically for people who want to look like abortion providers but actually seek to stop you from getting one and don’t provide any abortion services at all. It’s like googling GitHub and…

> In what way are these situations comparable? People searching for GitHub are more likely to use git and therefore are gitlab’s target audience. People searching for abortions are more likely to get an abortion and thus the target audience for anti-abortion orgs. It seems logical from an advertising perspective even though you may not agree with it. As a pregnant woman deciding what I do with my pregnancy, this isn’…

The situation is more similar to Googling "nearest emergency room" and getting results for Christian Science Churches, where they don't believe that physical maladies are real.

The point is that Google is effectively denying medical care.

Re: Googling 'abortion clinic near me'? The top result often an anti-abortion clinic

#135

Post by prepend » Thu, Jun 22, 2023, 7:13 PM UTC

afavour wrote: post #98

prepend wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In what way are these situations comparable? People searching for GitHub are more likely to use git and therefore are gitlab’s target audience. People searching for abortions are more likely to get an abortion and thus the target audience for anti-abortion orgs. It seems logical from an advertising perspective even though you may not agree with it. As a pregnant woman deciding what I do with my pregnancy, this isn’…

> the info is probably something I’m interested in So if you were a pregnant woman you’d agree that these ads are bad because they deliberately misrepresent themselves. If you’re researching what to do with your pregnancy you’d surely want your search results to be accurate? > As a pregnant woman deciding what I do with my pregnancy For what it’s worth I’m pretty sure someone googling “abortion center near me” has de…

> For what it’s worth I’m pretty sure someone googling “abortion center near me” has decided what to do with their pregnancy anyway.

I think it’s hard to speak for everyone in such a way and everyone is different. Personally, I’ve googled this exact thing and hadn’t made up my mind yet.

This is a hard problem to google to solve, but they do make one off exceptions for banned types of ad buys. Off the top of my head, they voluntarily add restrictions for who can advertise for drug names. Not sure how they decide, but I suppose some abortion rights advocacy group could write a letter asking google to limit who can advertise related to abortion.

Although I could see this being a Supreme Court case if the anti-abortion folks are willing to pursue.

Re: Googling 'abortion clinic near me'? The top result often an anti-abortion clinic

#136

Post by swexbe » Thu, Jun 22, 2023, 7:56 PM UTC

pron wrote: post #125

swexbe wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Only if you disregard everyone outside USA/EU.

And China and India and Muslim countries. An absolutist aversion to abortion is a rather uniquely Christian position and the issue is not so hot outside of majority Christian countries and can be largely considered a peculiarly Christian matter. The second most negative view is probably in Buddhism (which, at least according to Wikipedia, also believes the foetus to be some form of a living human). Other religions ma…

"Most Indians oppose legal abortion"

(https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2022/03/02/son-preferen...)

"Classical Hindu texts are strongly opposed to abortion:

one text compares abortion to the killing of a priest another text considers abortion a worse sin than killing one's parents another text says that a woman who aborts her child will lose her caste"

(https://www.bbc.co.uk/religion/religions/hinduism/hinduethic...)

Abortion is illegal in a majority of Muslim majority countries. The exceptions are usually post soviet states

Re: Googling 'abortion clinic near me'? The top result often an anti-abortion clinic

#137

Post by GloomyBoots » Thu, Jun 22, 2023, 9:09 PM UTC

swexbe wrote: post #136

pron wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And China and India and Muslim countries. An absolutist aversion to abortion is a rather uniquely Christian position and the issue is not so hot outside of majority Christian countries and can be largely considered a peculiarly Christian matter. The second most negative view is probably in Buddhism (which, at least according to Wikipedia, also believes the foetus to be some form of a living human). Other religions ma…

"Most Indians oppose legal abortion" ( https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2022/03/02/son-preferen... ) "Classical Hindu texts are strongly opposed to abortion: one text compares abortion to the killing of a priest another text considers abortion a worse sin than killing one's parents another text says that a woman who aborts her child will lose her caste" ( https://www.bbc.co.uk/religion/religions/hinduism/hindueth…

There’s a funny, widespread phenomenon of people invoking cultural relativity and Christian particularism specifically on issues with the most cross-cultural consensus.

Re: Googling 'abortion clinic near me'? The top result often an anti-abortion clinic

#138

Post by pron » Thu, Jun 22, 2023, 10:02 PM UTC

swexbe wrote: post #136

pron wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And China and India and Muslim countries. An absolutist aversion to abortion is a rather uniquely Christian position and the issue is not so hot outside of majority Christian countries and can be largely considered a peculiarly Christian matter. The second most negative view is probably in Buddhism (which, at least according to Wikipedia, also believes the foetus to be some form of a living human). Other religions ma…

"Most Indians oppose legal abortion" ( https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2022/03/02/son-preferen... ) "Classical Hindu texts are strongly opposed to abortion: one text compares abortion to the killing of a priest another text considers abortion a worse sin than killing one's parents another text says that a woman who aborts her child will lose her caste" ( https://www.bbc.co.uk/religion/religions/hinduism/hindueth…

I didn't talk about opposing abortion, but about the absolutist view that considers abortion the killing of a person. For example, in Judaism abortion is forbidden in many cases, but not because it is considered killing a person (nor is it a worse offence than, say, lighting a match on the Sabbath). When Islam forbids abortion, it does not forbid it because the foetus is considered a person (until four months, at least). The absolutist position that a foetus is a person since conception or soon thereafter and therefore abortion is forbidden because it is akin to murder is a largely Christian belief (maybe Buddhist, too).

BTW, abortion is legal in Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Indonesia, Sudan, Afghanistan, and Pakistan in more situations than it is in some American states.

Re: Googling 'abortion clinic near me'? The top result often an anti-abortion clinic

#139

Post by GloomyBoots » Thu, Jun 22, 2023, 10:51 PM UTC

pron wrote: post #138

swexbe wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Most Indians oppose legal abortion" ( https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2022/03/02/son-preferen... ) "Classical Hindu texts are strongly opposed to abortion: one text compares abortion to the killing of a priest another text considers abortion a worse sin than killing one's parents another text says that a woman who aborts her child will lose her caste" ( https://www.bbc.co.uk/religion/religions/hinduism/hindueth…

I didn't talk about opposing abortion, but about the absolutist view that considers abortion the killing of a person. For example, in Judaism abortion is forbidden in many cases, but not because it is considered killing a person (nor is it a worse offence than, say, lighting a match on the Sabbath). When Islam forbids abortion, it does not forbid it because the foetus is considered a person (until four months, at lea…

> the absolutist view

Why do you keep using that word? Having a position isn't absolutist. Additionally, this is also the biological view on abortion (moral judgments on such acts as killing aside).

> BTW, abortion is legal in Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Indonesia, Sudan, Afghanistan, and Pakistan in more situations than it is in some American states.

Abortion is more legal in America than Europe as a whole, as well. What does this signify? Absolutely nothing.

> When Islam forbids abortion, it does not forbid it because the foetus is considered a person (until four months, at least).

Sure, if you discount the Shia, Malikis, Ibadis, etc. And the rest are tend to be very prohibitive even before that point.

There's nothing peculiarly Christian about the Christian conception of life. Of the four major religions in terms of population, three share it, as do significant chunks of the fourth.

Re: Googling 'abortion clinic near me'? The top result often an anti-abortion clinic

#140

Post by 3pt14159 » Thu, Jun 22, 2023, 10:55 PM UTC

civilitty wrote: post #42

3pt14159 wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1. When you say "desirable" here you're speaking relatively. Abortion isn't intrinsically something that the vast majority of women want, what they want is to not be pregnant for one reason or another. 2. Many, many people have middle-of-the-road opinions about abortion. Nudging them into carrying the human to term and giving it up for adoption isn't akin to selling fake services, it's more akin to organ donation.

Go to r/RegretfulParents and read about some of the stories of women who wanted abortions and were manipulated by these places at a vulnerable time in their life. It’s pretty horrifying. Most of these places won’t help a lick once the baby is actually born.

Well I can't speak for these places since I've never worked for them or used them, but that being said, giving up a child for adoption is very, very easy. Even fire halls take children, no questions asked.

I understand that there are regretful parents, but keep in mind these things:

1. These very parents were given the gift of making it to adulthood to make a choice they regret, something that unborn children do not get to make.

2. Adults regret many things and the choice for carrying a baby to term while adoption is such a viable option is far from the top of the list of things that someone regrets in life. It is much more likely for someone to regret getting married than for them to regret giving birth.

3. Ethics truly do matter. It is not what someone does when the manager of the bank is standing over them and they check their balance with their debit card that matters. It is what they do when the ATM erroneously displays a much higher balance in the middle of the night in a dark and seedy bar that counts. In the same way, resisting the dehumanizing characterization of unborn humans matters most in societies where this is common place enough for these decisions to carry weight, and there are many example from history that highlight the same type of moral dilemmas. It seems strange standing in the present and being confronted with a challenge that we may very well be "the bad guys" but the same was true of slavers and many other horrible types of people.