Siri will tell you your dad's birthday, but not where to get an abortion
By EJ DicksonNovember 29th, 2011, 6:30 pmComments (13)
Much like her ostensible namesake Suri Cruise, Siri, the new iPhone 4S assistant, is a mystery wrapped in an enigma. She'll tell you where to find an Italian restaurant in North Beach, where to get breast implants in Queens, or even where to dump a body in the Tri-State area (she helpfully recommends a smelting plant in New Jersey). What Siri won't tell you, however, is where to procure an abortion in New York City or Washington, D.C., because Siri is either a devious instrument of the anti-choice contingent, or kind of a stupid computer program.
According to Raw Story's Megan Carpentier, if you're in Washington, D.C. and you ask Siri to find an abortion clinic, she'll direct you to a pro-life crisis pregnancy center (CPC) twenty-six miles away or to another CPC in York, Pennsylvania, instead of to the Planned Parenthood in the metro D.C. area. If you pose the same question to Siri in New York City, she will tell you that she can't find an abortion clinic. A quick Google search, however, will yield an extensive list of results.
Evidently, women all over the country are encountering similar difficulties with Siri; there are even accounts of users asking Siri where to find Plan B, only to be given a definition of emergency contraception. Apple has yet to comment on how exactly Siri's search engine works, so it's unclear if this is intentional or just a program glitch — but hey, if you live in Forest Hills and you happen to be in the market for some new sweater cows, Siri's still your gal!
Commentarium (13 Comments)
be a shame if all the knocked-up libs had to live with the results of their actions? What if everyone wanted to say "do over" whenever the outcome wasn't what they like? Better question: why weren't the pro-choicer's mothers more pro-choice? At least then we wouldn't have any OWS.
Interestingly, the rate of unplanned pregnancies among conservatives is slightly higher ('cause, you know, if you forget to abstain even once - you're fucked) and the rate of abortions about the same.
Legal or not.
be amazing if "Wouldn't it" used his brain before typing?
A pro-choicers mother can absolutely be pro-choice, man. She made the choice to have her baby, she respects the right of other mothers to do the same or to have an abortion. You see. Pro-choice =/= pro-abortion.
@Gazbo, conservatives like sex too so of course there will be unplanned pregnancies. At least we don't kill the "inconveniences." What do you pro-choicers do to support post-abortive women who are suffering? That's right, NOTHING!!
Even suggesting that this could be due to Siri being a "stupid program" is laughably naive. Yes, I'm sure this identical, very specific problem keeps popping up for completely apolitical, coincidental reasons.
"She'll tell you where to dump a body in the Tri-State area." Dumping a body sounds like an abortion. Good for Apple if they intentionally made Siri pro-life.
You're totally right MBR, this https://www.abortionaccess.info/abortionpictures.htm
is equivalent to murder. Absolutely right.
I kind of feel bad for tech companies that get caught up in these political side battles. It seems a bit crazy to omit the information, but it's also only a matter of time before some Mom complains that Siri helped her son figure out where to buy a gun/alcohol/etc.
Anyone relying solely on their iphone 4 for contaceptive advice shouldn't be having sex.
thank you for the sanity check. i couldn't agree more.
I guess I would ask, if the search is skewed on this one item, what other things haven't been noticed yet. By the postings here this is a hot button topic. But what if Siri started replying with Rick Perry type of answers, wrong legal voting age and wrong general election dates. Is Siri providing only answers limited to a very narrow view.
Now you say something