The strategy of using abortion-related keywords to send a woman searching the web for abortion information to a nearby crisis pregnancy center is already a few years old. But the scheme only received real national attention a couple of months ago, when Siri, Apple’s new voice-activated search assistant, was caught sending women looking for abortion clinics to centers that specialize in talking women out of abortions.

Apple refuted accusations of an anti-abortion agenda, instead blaming the “glitch” on search engines like Google and user-generated guides like Yelp, from which Siri largely extracts its information.

Apple’s explanation matched claims made by anti-abortion rights groups, whose websites describe in detail how they use keywords and Google ads to direct abortion seekers to a central website called Option Line, whose primary function is to route people to one of the thousands of crisis pregnancy centers throughout the country.

The Siri scandal sent The American Independent on a search for evidence that anti-abortion activists are successfully thwarting abortion searches on the Web. We found that CPCs have a minor presence online, but what’s telling is not so much the quantity of CPC ads that appeared on each front-page Google search, but the subtle, universal messaging these sites use.

In many cases, the presence of an anti-abortion agenda is masked.

Searching ‘abortion’

Like most businesses trying to boost their visibility on Google, anti-abortion pregnancy centers buy ads through Google’s AdWords program. But at the heart of the strategy appears to be CPC websites that not only share a universal message, but also a universal Web design.

Using various Google search approaches – “abortion,” “abortion services” “how can I get an abortion,” “I need an abortion” – TAI discovered at least one ad or entry that was linked to Option Line or to Option Line-created software on each primary search page.

These pages often also included two or three entries for individual crisis pregnancy centers or anti-abortion websites. One search result turned up a list of “abortion services” in the D.C. area that included anti-abortion pregnancy centers.

A Google ad that popped up frequently during our searches is “Thinking of Abortion?” whose URL is listed as assistcpc.org. The ad links to the website for Assist Pregnancy Center, a CPC in Annandale, Va. At the very bottom of the website is a note: “Website created by Optionline e-Xtend.” This links to Option Line Extend, a website development program that provides pregnancy centers with “a professional Internet presence.”

Another Google ad titled “Abortion Stories” links to the website standupgirl.com, whose domain is owned by Oregon Right to Life. The site is mainly devoted to promoting pregnancy and hosts an Option Line chat service on its homepage.

Option Line is a 24/7 live-operator contact center headquartered in Columbus, Ohio, which fields inquiries from people seeking information about abortion and pregnancy. It has a Spanish-only version at estasembarazada.com, staffed by bilingual consultants.

Option Line was co-founded in 2003 by Care Net and Heartbeat International, two of the three largest CPC networks in the U.S. About half of the more than 4,000 centers across the country are affiliated with one of these two networks.

In 2007, Option Line created Option Line Extend to sell to centers affiliated with either Care Net or Heartbeat International. CPCs are charged $150 for “basic websites,” $300 for “premium websites” and $500 for “ministry websites.”

Care Net, which made about $7 million in revenue in 2010, reported spending $600,000 on Option Line. Heartbeat International, which reported making about $1.4 million in revenue (PDF) in 2010, reported spending about 46 percent of its budget on its Option Line program between October 2010 and September 2011.

The Option Line Extend model websites are designed with calm colors and messaging, a departure from anti-abortion websites like AbortionNO.org (whose domain is owned by the Center for Bio-Ethical Reform), which links directly to a graphic video of a fetus being aborted.

Aside from live-chats and directions to the closest CPC, Option Line offers answers to questions about abortion, birth control and emergency contraception.

In an answer to the question, “Should I take the morning-after pill?” Option Line replies:

Many times women panic after having unprotected sex and rush to take the morning-after pill (Plan B One Step® or Next Choice®). However, you can only become pregnant on certain days of the month — around the time that you ovulate. Taking the morning-after pill during a time when you cannot become pregnant needlessly exposes you to large doses of hormones.

If you are already pregnant from an earlier sexual encounter, taking the morning-after pill is of no value and may cause harm6^, 7. To find out if you are pregnant, contact us, and we’ll connect you with a caring, qualified pregnancy center near you.

Questions about abortion are answered in similarly sober tones. Potential risks from abortion — often overstated by anti-abortion activists and CPC counselors — are stated here as what they are, potential risks. For example, while activists often argue that abortion is a direct cause of breast cancer, here the link is presented as uncertain. Option Line is also careful about putting disclaimers at the bottom of some of its pages, stating that its centers do not offer certain services, but this message is does not always appear on individual center sites.

Creating diversions on the Internet

According to a recently released updated report (PDF) on crisis pregnancy centers produced by the Family Research Council, Option Line averages about 1 million visitors per year and makes about 20,000 contracts per month, with media partners such as Heroic Media and Online for Life.

Last September, The American Independent reported that Heroic Media, an anti-abortion media group headquartered in Austin, Texas, was employing what’s known in the industry as “landing pages” or “doorway pages,” which Google defines as “poor-quality pages where each page is optimized for a specific keyword or phrase … written to rank a particular phrase and then funnel users to a single destination.”

The single destination where Heroic Media was trying to funnel users was Option Line’s homepage. Heroic Media’s parent company, Majella Cares, registered the Web domain freepreghelpline.com, which, when clicked on, goes to optionline.org/get-help.

Heroic Media discussed this strategy on its website when the Independent first reported the story.

This was an excerpt that we recorded from this page:

Internet keyword advertising is targeted and measureable. We can reach scared, abortion-vulnerable women with life-affirming messages and monitor effectiveness by the number of views, clicks, and visits to our site. We recently launched a new landing page at www.freepreghelpline.com to optimize reporting on just how many women are connected with life-affirming resources.

Keyword advertising on Google is also extremely cost-effective because you only pay for clicks, which cost an average of less than three dollars. That’s three dollars to connect abortion-vulnerable women with life-affirming information and people who can help.

A recent screenshot of the same web page we excerpted back in September shows that Heroic Media deleted the paragraph about freepreghelpline.com (also, the alleged amount of monthly “abortion” searches has jumped from 2 million to 6 million):

Screenshot from HeroicMedia.org, click to enlarge.

When asked if the organization is still using landing pages, Heroic Media spokesperson Marissa Gabrysch said the organization never used them.

“That’s inaccurate, although I understand why it was confusing,” Gabrysch told TAI in an email when asked about the doorway pages. “I have made the clarification on our website. Heroic Media’s keyword ads for Option Line link directly to optionline.org.

“The freepreghelpline.com site has not been advertised through keyword ads,” she continued.

The Apple logo (Photo: 4.bp.blogspot.com)

The New York Times reports that Apple has released a statement claiming that the controversy over Siri, the new iPhone voice software, is the result of a glitch, and was not intentional.

This week, controversy emerged over a lack of information provided by Siri when it comes to helping women who are seeking abortions, emergency contraception and birth control, among other things. Bloggers, who initially discovered the glitch, found the exemption troubling, writing that Siri is typically very helpful in providing information on almost anything else.

Bloggers also found that the software, in some cases, directed women to crisis pregnancy centers (CPCs) when they were seeking an abortion. CPCs have been known to mislead women seeking abortions in an effort to persuade them not to have the procedure done. They are typically religious centers that offer little to no medical services.

However, the Times reports that none of this was deliberate:

The company attributed the problem to kinks in the product that were still being ironed out. Siri is officially still a beta or test product.

“Our customers want to use Siri to find out all types of information, and while it can find a lot, it doesn’t always find what you want,” said Natalie Kerris, a spokeswoman for Apple, in a phone interview late Wednesday. “These are not intentional omissions meant to offend anyone. It simply means that as we bring Siri from beta to a final product, we find places where we can do better, and we will in the coming weeks.”

Nancy Keenan, the president of NARAL Pro-Choice America Foundation, announced yesterday that she sent a letter to the CEO of Apple voicing concern over aspects of the software. Anti-abortion advocates also commented on the news: One activist wrote a press release saying that she hopes “Apple remains steadfast and does not cave under any pressure brought by the abortion industry to start marketing abortion clinics.” The activist also said “this is a huge win for women and a significant step in the right direction.”

Most people think the bailout happened under Obama.

Peggy Noonan thinks we need more old people in politics.

Claire McCaskill is in no hurry on climate change legislation. “You know, it took 50 years on health care.”

Marco Rubio’s campaign raised a lot of money last quarter, but spent almost as much.

Michele Bachmann forms a “Tea Party Caucus.”

There was a record-high number of Army suicides in June.

If a recall of iPhone 4 is coming, Apple will announce it today.

This is all happening at Macworld in San Francisco. Apple said it’s not going to show up for the conference after this year, since analysts and investors always leave unimpressed, according to Bloomberg. But who cares about them anyway? Let’s move on to the iTunes news. From Bloomberg:

Apple Inc. the most popular source of music in the U.S., stripped copy protection from all the songs in its iTunes music store and announced plans to charge as little as 69 cents a track.

Under a new variable pricing plan, songs will cost 69 cents, 99 cents or $1.29 starting in April, with most albums going for $9.99, Apple marketing head Phil Schiller said today at the Macworld conference in San Francisco. He spoke in place of Chief Executive Officer Steve Jobs, who said yesterday that he is undergoing treatment for a “hormone imbalance.”

Apple had drawn criticism for using so-called digital- rights management, or DRM, on most tracks, prompting Jobs two years ago to make a public plea to music labels to change their licensing terms. The protections prevented customers from listening to music on unauthorized devices and limited the copies they could burn onto CDs. The company also faced competition from Amazon.com Inc., which charges as little as 79 cents a song — with no copy protection.

Investors again scoffed that Apple had nothing to say and that lowering the price of iTunes was no big deal, according to Bloomberg.

Somehow, I don’t think music lovers will agree.