Group claims Google manipulated search results to reduce visits to pro-life website

A pro-life group has accused Google of manipulating the parameters of its search engine to dramatically reduce exposure to a website that contains extensive information on abortion.

According to Operation Rescue, the fact page "Abortions in America," was the most visited page on its website until six weeks ago.

The group claims that the page was among the top five hits on the search "Abortions in the US," and was the top referrer to the OperationRescue.org. The page no longer appears on the first results page, and it was also dropped off the first page of search results for the term "Abortion Statistics," the group noted.

The fact page contains extensive information on abortion, including a graph comparing the number of babies born against the number of babies aborted and reasons why women obtain abortions. It also includes graphs of abortion statistics based on the gestational age of the baby and the type of procedure, as well as statistics on the age, race, religion, annual income and educational level of the patient. The page also contains a link to images of aborted babies and an actual footage of an abortion.

The organization noted that the fact page steadily grew in popularity after it was created in October 2012.

Operation Rescue contended that the page had been receiving an average of about 16,000 views a month, with virtually no promotion.

The visits to the site reportedly peaked in January with 37,111 views, but in May, the numbers declined by more than half over the previous month. It only got 1,512 views in June, and there were only 307 views in the last seven days of that month, according to the organization.

Troy Newman, president of Operation Rescue, asserted that the decline is the result of censorship.

"Google's censorship of our popular 'Abortions in America' page has revealed Google's pro-abortion agenda that is determined to deprive the public from seeing the truth about abortion displayed in incontrovertible facts and statistics drawn from a number of sources, some of which are unique to Operation Rescue.org," he said.

"Why are they manipulating their powerful search engine to steer the public away from our popular website? We want people to know that targeted pro-life content is being buried Google's search engine, which cannot be trusted," he went on to say.