Apple: Siri Not Blocking Abortion Clinics on iPhone

National   |   Steven Ertelt   |   Dec 1, 2011   |   2:29PM   |   Washington, DC

After receiving complaints from pro-abortion activists who couldn’t find listings of abortion businesses on their iPhones using the new Siri application, Apple representatives say the program is not blocking them.

An Apple spokesman told Mashable in an email statement that any problems users are experiencing finding abortion clinics is likely due to the newness of the technology for the voice-recognition search program rather than a purposeful attempt to hide results including abortion facilities.

“Our customers want to use Siri to find out all types of information and while it can find a lot, it doesn’t always find what you want,” the representative said. “These are not intentional omissions meant to offend anyone. It simply means that as we bring Siri from beta to a final product, we find places where we can do better and we will in the coming weeks.”

As LifeNews reporter Andrew Bair noted, abortion advocates were outraged to find that when Siri was asked questions related to abortion the phone responded with a list of pregnancy resource centers instead of local abortion facilities.

The story broke after abortion advocates tested the phone in New York City, the city New York magazine labeled “The Abortion Capital of America,” where over 40% of pregnancies end in abortion (according to the Department of Health). Despite the persistent efforts of abortion advocates to drown out the positive alternatives to abortion provided by pregnancy centers, the iPhone 4S has chosen to highlight them.

Although some pro-life advocates informed LifeNews after the news broke that their phones showed results for abortion clinics, the lack of results for some people and in some areas was enough for NARAL to launch an official complaint.

Late Wednesday, NARAL submitted a letter to Apple complaining about the Siri results.

As LifeNews’s Bair noted in his report, “In their protests of pregnancy resource centers, self-described pro-choice advocates reveal their true goal is not to provide women with authentic choices, but rather to defend abortion-on-demand. In state after state, abortion advocates have fought tooth and nail against informed consent before an abortion. Legislative proposals offering women scientifically accurate information about her pregnancy, including the chance to view ultrasound before an abortion, have been met with firm opposition.”

“A majority of women who have had abortions say they would have made a different decision had they possessed more information or known of other resources available. These women spend the rest of their lives suffering with regret, guilt and sometimes even mental and physical health problems as a result of the abortion they should never have had. We owe it to women everywhere to make them aware of the positive, life-affirming alternatives available to them,” Bair wrote.