Researcher reveals misleading attempts by antiabortion groups to discourage abortions
Jenna Sherman calls for tech companies to regulate data released pertaining to the procedure
(Jenna Sherman, a program manager and researcher at Meedan Digital Lab, has studied the antiabortion movements to disinform, or deliberately spread false information to discourage abortions)
Misleading information has always been a hallmark of the antiabortion movement, but it spreads much more quickly and easily with the availability of search engines and social media. Now, with Roe v. Wade overturned, it marks the beginning of a new battle to ensure that women have sound research and data to make informed decisions about their reproductive health.
Jenna Sherman, a program manager and researcher at Meedan Digital Lab, has examined the tendencies of the antiabortion movement to spread propaganda and misinformation. Most of the ads that these groups are putting up deal with abortion reversal pills and demonization of abortion tourism, or the travel to locations where it is legal in order to get one performed.
Sherman said the rhetoric coming from that side has grown more vitriolic and angry since the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision, which overturned Roe, leaked to the public
“I think a lot of people were surprised because they thought that the antiabortion groups would be really happy with this win and lay off of it, but really it's just given more fuel to their fire,” Sherman said.
Sherman has called for tech companies to regulate the information pertaining to abortion. Since it’s a medical procedure, she thinks that the data should be released and monitored in the same manner that COVID-19 information does. Many of these companies have already created health misinformation policies, and Sherman argues that they just have to apply them when abortion is involved.
The antiabortion side would argue that those types of political efforts are protected under the First Amendment. Sherman rebuts that by saying that they may be able to debate the ethics of the medical procedure, but that people should ensure accurate information when it comes to actual medical aspects of abortion. Much like arguments over things like cloning or in vitro fertilization, there’s room for debate about the ethics of abortion. That’s echoed in the historical and medical literature that has been published in the last 50 years.
“This isn't a political debate. This is a science debate,” Sherman said. “And we're at the point where scientific falsities are in the decisions, the legal decisions themselves about abortion, and that's absolutely not okay. And platforms have the power to do something about how that content is or isn't spread online.”