On the day of the national March for Life in Washington D.C., anti-life Google pushed pro-choice news content to marchers.
MRC Free Speech America analyzed search results from Google, Bing and DuckDuckGo for the words “march for life” filtering specifically for new and using a “clean environment” the day of the March for Life. MRC also conducted an investigation at the March for Life rally, where 30 on-site marchers volunteered for the study and conducted the same Google search on their own phones. The findings were telling.
In both investigations, Google buried results from outlets like Fox News, Catholic News Agency and The Washington Examiner and instead elevated liberal news sources like The Hill, Axios, The Washington Post and The Associated Press. These sources vilified pro-life marchers as “abortion rights opponents” and “anti-abortion activists.” In contrast, Bing and DuckDuckGo instead elevated articles from a mix of different perspectives.
When searched in a “clean environment,” Google’s top search results in the news tab included four articles that were either neutral or showed a clear liberal bias.
Among the highest-ranking results, an Axios piece was by far the most inflammatory. While it's estimated that there were thousands of marchers in attendance, Axios seems to suggest that marchers associate with neo-Nazis. Headlined "In photos: Anti-abortion activists join March for Life in snow-covered D.C.," an Axios article initiated its photo album by highlighting the participation of the controversial group Patriot Front. The article characterized the group as a "nationalist and neo-fascist hate group.” While various Christian and student groups attended the rally, Axios singled out Patriot Front in its article.
A short write-up from The Hill topped the search results with the headline “Abortion-rights opponents rally at annual March for Life in DC: Watch live.” The article itself repeatedly referred to peaceful pro-life marchers as “anti-abortion” or “opponents of abortion.” The initial four results also included The Post and AP. Although each used headlines that were less inflammatory and presented some of pro-life perspective, both outlets also deployed pro-choice language to describe the pro-life event.
MRC researchers also gathered data from 30 marchers who, similarly, found Google results that excluded or buried the pro-life perspective, featuring pro-choice language in the top four search results. Although the order of appearance varied, the top results included:
- The Hill: “Abortion-rights opponents rally at annual March for Life in DC: Watch live”
- The Washington Post: March for Life in D.C., thousands of antiabortion protestors expected
- The Associated Press: In snowy DC, the March for Life rallies against abortion with an eye toward the November elections
- The New York Times: Abortion Opponents March in Washington, With Obstacles Ahead
- DCist: Road Closures For Friday's Annual March For Life
- USA Today: March for Life rally in Washington Spotlights anti-abortion movement
On the other hand, DuckDuckGo and Bing had no problem producing results from a variety of different perspectives. For example, when MRC researchers searched for “march for life” on Bing, the top five results in order came from AP, Real Clear Politics, Fox News, The Washington Post and The Washington Examiner. DuckDuckGo showed the same results with a slightly different order.
Strikingly, these findings come after Google propped up Planned Parenthood in its top search results for the word “pregnancy” in the week leading up to the March for Life.
Methodology
For this report, MRC Free Speech America has analyzed the Google, Bing and DuckDuckGo news tab search results for the words “march for life” on January 19, 2024, on the day of the 51st annual March for Life in Washington, D.C.
MRC Free Speech America created an algorithm to automate this process in a clean environment. A “clean environment” allows for organic search to populate results without the influence of prior search history and tracking cookies.
MRC Free Speech America researchers searched the words “march for life” using the algorithm. To determine bias, our researchers looked at each search engines’ results and recorded the rank(s) of results observed.
Thirty volunteers who attended the March for Life also contributed to this report. Each volunteer searched the words “march for life” on their own phones and MRC Free Speech America researchers collected images of the results for comparison with the “clean environment” search.
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