Yelp steers women away from crisis pregnancy centers, claims they give 'misleading information' to prevent abortion

Yelp is now the latest Big Tech company to shore up access to abortion in the wake of the Supreme Court decision to overturn Roe v. Wade. Yelp has now decided to flag crisis pregnancy centers to dissuade women from using their services rather than those provided at abortion clinics.

Beginning on Tuesday, Yelp, a website and app that purports to connect "people with great local businesses," will begin flagging both faith-based and non-faith-based CPCs with a "consumer notice" regarding the limited medical services CPCs usually provide.

"This is a Crisis Pregnancy Center," reads the notice posted with most CPC organizations listed on Yelp. "Crisis Pregnancy Centers typically provide limited medical services and may not have licensed medical professionals onsite."

Yelp has openly admitted that it hopes to prevent unsuspecting pregnant women who may be seeking abortions from utilizing the services offered by CPCs instead.

"It's been well-reported that crisis pregnancy centers often attempt to provide misleading information to people seeking abortion care to steer them to other options," a company statement says, "– with this new notification we're aiming to further protect consumers from the potential of being misled or confused."

Noorie Malik, Yelp’s VP of user operations, agreed.

"After learning about the misleading nature of crisis pregnancy centers back in 2018, I’m grateful Yelp stands behind these efforts to provide consumers with access to reliable information about reproductive health services," Malik told Axios in an email.

"It has always felt unjust to me," Malik continued, "that there are clinics in the U.S. that provide misleading information or conduct deceptive tactics to steer pregnant people away from abortion care if that’s the path they choose to take."

Malik stated that, with the new CPC notice, Yelp hopes to "better match" women seeking an abortion with licensed providers and lessen the chances that such women will be directed toward CPCs instead.

It is unclear whether women seeking pregnancy support services who mistakenly select an abortion provider on Yelp will be redirected toward businesses that better match their search needs.

Many CPCs were "review bombed" on Yelp after the Dobbs decision from SCOTUS earlier this year, prompting Yelp to prevent commenters, who were mostly abortion-rights activists, from adding poor reviews, according to Business Insider.

Other Big Tech firms have likewise attempted to adjust some of their policies to protect abortion after Roe. On Tuesday, the Alphabet Workers Union petitioned Google to address several abortion-related issues, including "misleading search results related to abortion services."

Yelp announced earlier this year that it would provide full financial support to any employee or employee spouse seeking an abortion out of state.

H/T: Daily Wire