Google-owned YouTube has admitted a mistake in censoring a pro-life video but refuses to revoke its fact-checking censorship.
The Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) shared a video on its YouTube channel on Feb. 5 highlighting the dangers of the abortion pill for women using it. YouTube imposed a fact-checking context label that falsely claimed abortion is “done by a licensed healthcare professional” even though abortion pills are administered by the women themselves. After being called out by 16 state attorneys general, YouTube updated its label but did not remove it. The video platform uses such labels to discredit and suppress content that goes against a leftist narrative.
ADF Senior Counsel Erik Baptist issued a comment on YouTube’s update, arguing, “Women deserve to know the truth about the risks posed by abortion drugs, which is why first-hand accounts like the ones ADF posted on YouTube are so vital.” He thanked the attorneys general for “calling out false information,” noting that YouTube has since “corrected its previously misleading notice.”
Baptist also critiqued the Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) “reckless decision to end the requirement that chemical abortions be done by a licensed healthcare professional.” This leaves women aborting their unborn babies at home without medical supervision. YouTube’s incorrect warning label highlighted this very problem, according to Baptist.
The “YouTube disclaimer” being “flatly wrong …perfectly illustrates why we are suing the FDA on behalf of four medical associations, their members, and four doctors,” Baptist added. The FDA, he accused, has “discontinued virtually all safety protocols on abortion drugs, jeopardizing the health and safety of women,” and YouTube perpetrated the risk.
The label remains on ADF’s YouTube video, illustrating the video platform’s unwillingness to back off censoring pro-life content. The information, drawn from the National Library of Medicine, is updated to admit different abortion procedures, though the language used is still leftist and biased. “An abortion is a procedure to end a pregnancy,” the label states. “It can be done two different ways: Medication abortion, which uses medicines to end the pregnancy. It is sometimes called a ‘medical abortion’ or ‘abortion with pills.’ Procedural abortion, a procedure to remove the pregnancy from the uterus. It is sometimes called a ‘surgical abortion.’”
YouTube has a history of censoring pro-life content. For instance, in 2021, LifeSiteNews’ channel was removed from the platform. YouTube also suspended the EWTN Español channel in 2021 for posting multiple pro-life videos. Back in 2020, The platform deleted a video from pro-life nonprofit Created Equal that showed what happened after a mother gave birth to premature twins who were reportedly denied care and left to die. The platform cited its Community Standards as the reason for the censorship.
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