Facebook censors pro-life group Live Action as 'false news,' cites pro-abortion fact checkers
Facebook is censoring pro-life group Live Action, claiming that its content is "false news" and using two doctors that perform abortions as fact-checkers.
The social media giant marked Live Action as “false” for promoting in a video the perspective that abortion is "never medically necessary," a view, the group stressed, that is held by thousands of OB-GYNs across the globe.
Live Action said last week it was notified that their page's reach will be reduced for the "repeated sharing of false news."
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The third-party mechanism that Facebook used last week to determine the group's content was "inaccurate" relied upon the viewpoints of Robyn Schickler, an abortion doctor, and Daniel Grossman, who is both an abortion doctor and an abortion trainer. Both doctors are based at California universities and claim abortion is a medically necessary procedure.
In response to the contested Live Action video, Grossman claimed on Health Feedback that Live Action founder and president Lila Rose's words were inaccurate because certain medical conditions such as placenta previa and HELLP syndrome can make abortion medically necessary to prevent the mother's death.
Responding Friday, Rose said of the social media company's actions: “With thousands of OB-GYN’s and medical professionals on the record agreeing with us that the direct killing of a child is never medically necessary, it is telling that Facebook decided to fact-check our information, which we have posted about for over three years, using two abortionists for their sourcing."
"Not only did they fail to get disinterested perspectives, they appear to have gone out of their way to find pro-abortion activists whose public opposition to our views is indisputable. This is clear evidence of bias and discrimination against our over three million strong Facebook community members and an outrageous act of censorship on the part of Facebook."
The pro-life group pushed back on Facebook's claim by citing the over 1,000 medical professionals who signed the Dublin Declaration on Maternal Healthcare, which states that "the purposeful destruction of the unborn child – is not medically necessary to save the life of a woman," and approximately 2,500 others from the American Association of Pro-life Obstetricians and Gynecologists.
“Continued efforts to censor Live Action will have tremendous implications, not only for the pro-life movement, but for free speech in America,” Rose said.
Commenting on the events, Dr. Donna Harrison, executive director of AAPLOG, said it was the pro-abortion fact-checkers who needed to be fact-checked.
"They are in error to claim that elective abortion is medically necessary to save the life of the mother. They did not cite even one example where an abortion, the intentional killing of a living child in utero, would be superior to delivering that child. The two Live Action videos state that there will be cases when a child is delivered too early to survive outside of the womb in order to save a mother’s life," Harrison said in a statement on AAPLOG's website.
"There is a very big difference between previable separations and elective abortion. In these situations where a mother and her fetus must be separated in order to save the life of the mother we would try to optimize the conditions of the separation so that the fetus has the best possibility to live. But there are cases when the baby will not survive the separation due to gestational age. We call these previable separations. These separations are done with the intent to save both if possible, but at least to save the life of one. Previable separations are not the same as elective abortions."
Live Action is known for its extensive pro-life advocacy and undercover sting operations exposing Planned Parenthood's shady practices. In recent months, it has been kicked off Pinterest and has battled Twitter, which has refused to allow the group to purchase ads.
