Every September, my library—and probably yours—celebrates “Banned Books Week,” during which liberals croon about their dedication to free speech.
But America’s most “liberal” cities have recently piled up their own bonfires for speech: when pro-life advocates are speaking to women about abortion.
This week, San Francisco claimed that it could punish pro-life centers that offer real help to women because a Google search for the term “abortion” yields pro-life centers in the results.
San Francisco is working with the National Abortion Rights Action League, whose ill-fated attacks on pro-life speech have resulted in three federal court injunctions this year alone.
I thought liberals were supposed to be technologically savvy, but apparently when San Francisco and NARAL ventured onto the Interwebs, they didn’t learn how a search works.
Ads in printed Yellow Pages directories (do those exist anymore?) are personally placed in categories that only list providers of that service, like “restaurants.”
So it makes sense that abortionists can’t be listed under “abortion alternatives,” nor pro-life centers under “abortion providers.”
But Google is not like your grandfather’s old Yellow Pages. Google is more akin to the library.
The Internet contains everything, so a search, without quotation marks, for “abortion in San Francisco” is not like flipping to a printed directory of abortion providers.
The person searching might want to explore local laws or public discussions about abortion, prominent abortion providers or pro-life leaders in the Bay Area, the history of clashes between Operation Rescue and B.A.C.A.O.R., or even facts about abortion itself.
The term “abortion” should produce websites from both pro-life and pro-abortion viewpoints. That’s what free speech means.
Yet San Francisco and NARAL want to define it as “deceptive” and punishable if pro-life sources turn up in a search for “abortion.” This is no different than banning all pro-life books from the library if they mention abortion. In such a “liberal” mindset, only one side can talk freely about abortion; the rest get fined.
This week many reporters regurgitated San Francisco’s allegations, such as San Francisco Weekly’s Lauren Smiley, who dramatically showed that she too ran a Google search for “abortion San Francisco” and found pro-life results.
But two can play at that game. In their exhaustive journalistic efforts, it apparently didn’t occur to any reporter to Google “abortion alternatives in San Francisco.”
Lo and behold, the very first result is a paid ad by one of the largest abortion chains in California, Family Planning Associates. The first non-ad, non-categorized result is “Choices” abortion facility in San Francisco.
I guess they must be liars, according to NARAL’s standard. Funny that none of California’s champions of truth thought to mention California abortionists whose ads and websites pop up under “abortion alternatives.” Attorney General Harris, call your office.
Also curious is that this is not the first time leftists have discussed restrictions on Internet searches. The San Francisco Board of Supervisors, supported by groups like the ACLU, banned Internet filters at its public library computers that would have prevented minors from accessing Internet pornography. But the same city is now proposing that pro-life Internet results be banned from keyword searches for abortion.
That’s because many so-called “liberals” believe only in abortion, and they don’t let the First Amendment get in the way. Proof of this exists in every case where the Alliance Defense Fund obtained injunctions against NARAL’s laws.
The judge who granted the ADF motion to put the brakes on a deeply flawed New York City law targeting pro-life pregnancy resource centers called it “puzzling” that the New York ACLU chapter filed a brief in favor of the speech-restricting law. The ACLU argued, in essence, that speech about pregnancy is not fully-protected speech.
Meanwhile the ACLU has opposed laws such as the Stolen Valor Act that punish false speech about congressional medals, which the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit struck down because it warned against Big Brother monitoring public discourse.
San Francisco wants to punish speech because pro-life centers appear in Internet searches for “abortion” or because pro-abortion officials call pro-life views “misleading.” Will the ACLU and civil libertarians be consistent and defend speech, or will they again elevate abortion above everything else?
Matt Bowman is legal counsel with the Alliance Defense Fund.
