Google to Clearly Label Names of US Abortion Centres in Search, Map

Google will now clearly label the names of the medical facilities in the United States that would provide abortions in its Search as well as in Google Maps. The top executives of the American tech giant informed the US lawmakers that the company is taking this step to avoid confusing the abortion centres with the anti-abortion centres. Earlier this month, over 650 workers at Google owner Alphabet demanded it offer abortion benefits to contractors, suspend donations to anti-abortion politicians, and better protection to users from abortion-related disinformation and police requests.

Searching the phrase “abortion clinics near me” will now show facilities that are verified to provide abortions, Mark Isakowitz, Vice President for Government Affairs and Public Policy for US and Canada at Google, explained in a letter to Senator Mark Warner and Representative Elissa Slotkin.

Isakowitz also added that Google will let users broaden their search to get results of other important listings including organisations that do not provide abortions.

The latest letter from Google is in response to a later dated June 17 from Warner and Slotkin where they urged Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai to take steps to prevent misleading Google search results regarding abortion information.

As mentioned earlier, over 650 workers at Alphabet demanded that the company offer abortion benefits to contractors, along with suspending donations to anti-abortion politicians. The workers also requested Google to provide better protection to its users from abortion-related disinformation as well as police requests.