Google, in conjunction with NARAL Pro-Choice America, is working to remove ads by the Crisis Pregnancy Center, a non-profit that spreads false information about the risks of abortions.
Whether you agree with abortion or not, this is a positive step toward more reliable and helpful sex education in America, where 26 states still teach abstinence as the most effective form of birth control.
Abstinence only education has not been proven to work and students who pledge to remain abstinent are no less likely to become pregnant or contract an STD than those who don’t make the pledge.
The Crisis Pregnancy Center offered false medical services in 79 percent of their ads, saying that they provided abortions.
The clinics had no medical licenses, though they did offer sonogram services and free counseling and information about abortion.
These services, however, falsely increased the physical and mental health risks of having an abortion and were used to persuade women to not abort.
The ads showed up in 80 percent of the Google search results for “abortion clinic” in the top 25 major U.S. cities, making this misleading information highly visible.
April is Sexual Assault Awareness Month and for many it brings up an uncomfortable truth: young people, especially in America, are uneducated when it comes to sexual assault and their sexual health.
Although teen pregnancy in the United States has decreased by 42 percent since the 1990s, it, along with abortion and birth rates, is the highest of any industrialized country.
It is estimated that three in 10 girls will become pregnant once before they reach the age of 20.
The high number of teen pregnancies has a lot to do with the sex education system in America, which is sub-par.
A Center for Disease Control study found that only six out of 10 girls said the sex education at their school had any information on how to say no to sex.
Adding to the problem is the warped view of sexuality in our society.
A recent article from PolicyMic by Julianne Ross titled “17 Things We Need to Stop Telling Girls About Sex” does an amazing job of busting a lot of myths surrounding sex.
Our society continually reinforces these myths in young girls, one of the most damaging and confusing being the idea of virginity, which is at best an outdated, archaic way of keeping girls pure.
These issues should not be related to political parties or ideologies, religious beliefs, or by the government.
If we as a society realized that every person is responsible for their own sexual health and that sex education is a vitally important piece of adolescent development, false information like that spread by the Crisis Pregnancy Center would be less likely to occur and much less tolerated.
Olivia Marovich
News editor
Olivia Marovich can be reached at [email protected]
