NARAL lied: No “deceptive” pregnancy center ads pulled by Google
On April 28 NARAL made a media splash by claiming it had gotten Google to remove a large number of ”deceptive ads from anti-choice crisis pregnancy centers.”
And those “deceptions,” if true, were major whoppers.
From the Washington Post:
According to an analysis by NARAL, 79 percent of the crisis pregnancy centers that advertised on Google indicated that they provided medical services such as abortions, when, in fact, they are focused on counseling services and on providing information about alternatives to abortion….
Google said in a statement that it had applied its ad policy standards in this case and followed normal company procedures.
That’s a lot of pregnancy care centers supposedly posing as abortion clinics. The sheer magnitude should have raised a red flag with any objective journalist who bore in mind s/he had been fed those statistics by the opposition. I am aware of NO pcc that would do such a thing.
NARAL claimed:
We discovered that if you Googled “abortion clinic,” ads funded by anti-choice crisis pregnancy centers (CPCs) appeared 79 percent of the time. CPCs don’t provide or refer for abortion care, and they shouldn’t trick women into thinking that they do.
NARAL further claimed:
[M]ore than two-thirds of the ads we identified have been removed or taken down. The ads in question violate several of the company’s advertising practices by misrepresenting the services the centers provide….
Pro-lifers were immediately alarmed by NARAL’s witch hunt and Google’s apparent capitulation.
But now that the dust has settled, it is clear NARAL fabricated this storyline.
All major national pregnancy care center organizations have confirmed to myself or fellow pro-life journalists that not one of their prc ads has been pulled from Google. These groups cover the gamut and include CareNet, CompassCare, Heartbeat International, Heroic Media, National Institute of Family and Life Advocates, Online for Life, and Vitae Foundation.
NARAL cited an ad by pregnanthelp.com as an example of the “deception”:
PregnantHelp.com is a CareNet affiliate. Today, Melinda Gipson, CareNet’s Vice President of Marketing and Communications, responded via email:
What NARAL objected to was the fact that this ad appeared when someone searched, “Abortion clinic Naperville, IL.” Yet the center never bought the search term “abortion clinic.” Instead, it is more likely that Google’s AdWords’ real-time bidding engine saw the word “abortion” and “Naperville” in its queue, weighed this against the text in the ad and the price the center was bidding for exposure, then deemed the ad appropriate.
If anything, Google was itself probably responsible for the juxtaposition of this search string and the Naperville ad, and the fact that the ad was not in fact removed, nor was Naperville identified of a violation, shows that Google agrees.
So it may be Google itself that is responsible for the ad words glitch, which would explain its ambiguous response to queries on this matter.
Gipson explained more about how Google places ads in a follow-up email, which I found quite helpful. Gipson is a Google ad word expert, having had 20 years of experience in online media and marketing before joining CareNet.
Indeed, when I googled “abortion clinic Naperville il” today, PregnantHelp.com’s ad appeared first, with another pro-life organization (freeabortionhelp.com) third:
When I googled “abortion clinic,” a pro-life ad came up second. For “abortion clinics,” two pro-life ads were among those listed on the right side.
SearchEngineLand.com concurred with my findings:
Do Google’s actions mark a policy change on abortion related advertising? Is this an indication the company is taking a political stance on the issue? Are all ads from pregnancy centers banned on Google? Did NARAL tread new ground in “lobbying” Google to remove ads it found misleading?
The answer to all of these questions is, No….
A clinic that does not offer abortion services can still buy and advertise on “crisis pregnancy center” and “abortion clinic” related keywords. The advertisers can promote the abortion alternative services, adoption or pre-natal care they offer, for example.
Bottom line, NARAL fabricated the Google storyline, and the mainstream media willingly or ignorantly fell for it.
NARAL got what it wanted in the short term – free media to tarnish the brand of pregnancy care centers, plus an accomplishment to show its donors other than its president, Ilyse Hogue, going on The Daily Show to discuss penis pumps.
But NARAL also revealed the desperation of an industry that is bleeding its only source of income, abortion, to the pro-life movement, and the industry obviously and rightfully deems pregnancy care centers to be major culprits.
But NARAL better be careful what it wishes for. A Google search today of “crisis pregnancy center” turned up an ad for none other than Planned Parenthood…
And as Tom Glessner of NIFLA pointed out at NationalRightToLifeNews.org:
Interestingly, if you do a search of “Abortion alternatives, city, state,” who do you think shows up in the paid advertising? Go ahead try it! The top three listing will most likely be abortion providers. Talk about deceptive and misleading advertising! Let’s tell Google about that!
Indeed. Perhaps MSM will be interested in doing a follow-up corrective story exposing the real deceivers – not.
[HT for “crisis pregnancy center”/PP ad: LifeSiteNews.com]
Jill Stanek is a nurse turned speaker, columnist and blogger, a national figure in the effort to protect both preborn and postborn innocent human life.
So glad it’s not true!
Not surprising that NARAL lied. They’ve tried to do an undercover expose of CPCs in my state, but it just falls flat. It is like they are flabbergasted that someone offers women an alternative to abortion.
I do take issue with the freeabortionhelp.com website advertising “Free Women’s Clinic-Abortion Info and Options Counseling” Its web address & description is vague implies it’s an abortion clinic. However a visit to their website reveals they offer free pregnancy tests, ultrasound, and options counseling, trademarks of pregnancy resource centers. A chat via their text messaging number confirms this, they are a chain of pregnancy resource centers affiliated with CareNet.
Edit:
I do take issue with the freeabortionhelp.com website advertising “Free Women’s Clinic-Abortion Info and Options Counseling” From their web address & description I’d initially gotten the impression they’re an abortion clinic. However a visit to their website reveals they offer free pregnancy tests, ultrasound, and options counseling, trademarks of pregnancy resource centers. A chat via their text messaging number confirms this, they are a chain of pregnancy resource centers affiliated with CareNet. It does bother me that they’d intentionally use misleading & vague terms to attract abortion-minded women, as this is dishonest & doing a disservice to the pregnancy resource movement because this is exactly what pro-choicers are using against us.
THEY LIED???
NO WAY!!
The group was founded on a lie, frankly I am surprised they would go this low though. I am sure something must have been pulled, but perhaps it was a small handful, so small it’s not discernibly noticeable.
I should say surprised because statistics are easy to fudge, but unlike the dead unborn they help to remove from this world, pregnancy centers are full of live and kicking people that can call “liar liar pants on fire.”
Actually, in response to Ladybug, freeabortionhelp.com is maintained by Heroic Media, not Care Net.
I stand corrected, after a little more research, I found Heroic Media created the ad and operates the above referred to website and just refers visitors of their website to OptionLine (which is owned & operated by CareNet & Heartbeat International). However it doesn’t change the fact that Heroic Media was being dishonest & this could reflect negatively on OptionLine & the pregnancy resource centers they make referrals to.
Ok, I stand corrected…again, the number pregnancy hotline they provide doesn’t appear to be affiliated with Optionline, in fact I’m not finding what pregnancy resource centers organization they’re referring women to, but it still stands the premise of their ad & website is dishonest in that it suggests they’re an abortion clinic while they refer women to pregnancy resource centers & this reflects poorly on both the website & the PRCs they refer women to.
when we had just moved to a new arear, I couldn’t get an appointment at an OBs and was desperately looking just for somewhere that could do an ultrasound to check where my placenta is (because my genetic condition makes placenta previa more likely), and we were unemployed without income and staying with relatives I tried to search for local CPCs to see if any of them did ultrasounds. My attempts to find a CPC led me to half a dozen ads which were so ambiguous I couldn’t, even as a very literate and suave consumer, tell if they were supposed to be abortion providers or actual pregnancy resource centers, and one clear add for a CPC. I had to do follow up searches of business addresses, nurse/doctor names, and alternative services (like ‘c-section’ or ‘adoption’). Know what I managed to find out after about 3 hours? Every last one of the ambiguous adds was either for an abortion mill or for a private doctor’s practice whose ‘other women’s health services’ may or may not have included abortions. This is just an example of NARAL not wanting any competition. It’s like the joke “don’t steal, the government doesn’t like the competition”, since abortion providers advertise as ambiguously as possible to attack people desperate for help, they want to make sure that no one who searches for pregnancy help get anything but their adds.