Walking around the streets of Johannesburg, it’s worrying to see the number of posters offering abortion care plastered on the city walls. It’s hard to tell from looking at them, but despite having one of the world’s most progressive legal frameworks for abortion, these are not regulated, quality healthcare providers.
Instead, women are misdirected to ‘crisis pregnancy centres’ or unregulated providers, given something as ineffective as an aspirin or a laxative, or in the worst cases, forced to undergo a dangerous illegal procedure, leaving them with life-threatening injuries.
Half of abortions are carried out this way in South Africa.
Like women all around the world, women here will do whatever they can to end a pregnancy that they cannot or do not want to continue. I’ve heard from those who have consumed bleach, ingested herbs from traditional healers or used coat hangers to end their own pregnancy. It must stop.
Even in countries like South Africa where abortion is legal, stigma, lack of political will, limited medical resources and a dearth of trained professionals can make accessing safe abortion much harder than you would think. In these environments, accurate online information is a lifeline.
But in many Global South countries, tech companies are extending the physical barriers women face into the online world. Anti-choice groups are able to spread disinformation with impunity whilst tech companies profit from this dangerous propaganda. It’s time they took responsibility.
Anti-choice misinformation
Disinformation about abortion is now commonplace online. Around the world, websites for fake abortion clinics pop up all the time. Just like the posters, they perfectly mimic legitimate sexual and reproductive care providers – but they’re scams, designed to misdirect or embezzle money from unsuspecting women.
Time and time again, we’ve flagged them to Google. But nothing is done. They’re left online, waiting to take advantage of women in need of timely medical care. Whilst in countries like the US and the UK, Google has worked to ensure that people are directed to regulated, safe providers, the Global South has been left behind.
Meanwhile, Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram, rejects and removes MSI’s ads without explanation, leaving us with no one to turn to but a chatbot. In Ghana, Meta limits the language we can use to such an extent that we struggle to share any content at all. We can no longer even use the phrase “pregnancy options” to signpost to our sexual and reproductive healthcare services. By creating these digital barriers, they are contributing to the stigma around abortion and preventing women from finding essential time-sensitive healthcare services.
At the same time, the corporation is profiting from anti-choice ads that do not face the same restrictions. These ads share harmful disinformation about what it claims are the side effects of abortion medication, conspiracy theories about regulated abortion providers and toxic narratives about why women should be criminalised for ending their own pregnancy. Without policies and practices in place that protect access to accurate information on sexual and reproductive healthcare, tech companies are prioritising profit over the health and lives of women and girls in the Global South.
Right now, only 57 per cent of women around the world are able to make their own informed decisions about things like whether to use contraception or have sex. By giving a platform to anti-choice groups, Meta and Google are contributing to the restrictions placed on women’s bodies and limiting their choices.
Having access to accurate sexual and reproductive health information is critical for women having agency over their bodies and being in the driving seat of their own futures. And this autonomy has a powerful ripple effect. Reproductive choice supports families to have more time and resources, drives change in communities, expands countries’ economic opportunities, and builds a fairer world for everyone.
That’s why, at MSI, we choose choice.
Platforms like Meta and Google have a choice too. Do they want to continue to focus on the bottom line at the expense of spreading misinformation? Or support the lives and futures of women and girls around the world?
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