An advocate for the dignity and life of all human beings is calling out the hypocrisy she’s seen on Twitter this week, after the social media giant shared support for women everywhere — except for women who are pro-life.
“We stand with women around the world to make their voices heard and their presence known. To bring them front and center, today and every day. Join us as we say #HereWeAre,” Twitter declared this past Sunday in connection with the Oscars telecast.
The new campaign seems to be an effort by Twitter to align itself with an emboldened message for women in the wake of Hollywood’s sexual harassment scandals, according to an article in Variety. The campaign debuted during the Oscars with a 60-second spot featuring a multi-generational group of women.
But Lila Rose, founder and president of Live Action, based in Washington, D.C., is blasting the double standard.
“I’m a woman who works to spread awareness about the 3,000+ abortions that happen daily in our nation and how we must do better for children and women. But Twitter has blocked me and my organization Live Action from all advertising and promotion,” she replied on Twitter.
LifeZette reached out to Rose, who founded the group when she was a teenager, for more information.
“The sad thing with the #TimesUp movement is that Hollywood is trying to expose sexual abusers and their accomplices, yet stars are still fervently supporting Planned Parenthood — one of the abusers’ best friends,” Rose, based in California, told LifeZette by email this week. “Child sexual abusers who end up impregnating their underage victims often take their victims to Planned Parenthood to get abortions to cover up their crimes.”
“The abortion chain often doesn’t ask questions, doesn’t alert parents, and routinely fails to report the suspected abuse to law enforcement, which they are mandated to do in many states,” said Rose.
“Twitter has banned Live Action’s ability to advertise our content beyond our existing followers until we delete all the tweets it deems offensive — in other words, all the tweets that offend Planned Parenthood.”
“Twitter told us we must delete all tweets calling for the end of taxpayer funding for Planned Parenthood, all tweets of our undercover investigations into Planned Parenthood, all tweets discussing the abortion procedure, and even simple ultrasound images of pre-born children,” Rose also maintained. “In fact, we were told that in order to advertise on Twitter, we must not only remove the tweets from Twitter — we must scrub any content criticizing Planned Parenthood, exposing abortion, or showing ultrasound images from our own website.”
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So Twitter has prohibited Live Action from posting images of children developing in the womb. In other words, beautiful and sacred images of little souls forming are now deemed taboo.
LifeZette reached out to Twitter for comment, but as of publication time had not heard back.
It’s not the first time Live Action has charged Twitter with banning pro-life messages on social media. It did so in September 2017, and at that time, Twitter denied the charges. “A Twitter spokeswoman denied that the company censors advertisers based on their political viewpoints,” The Washington Post reported in September 2017. The spokesperson also said Twitter had “clear, transparent rules that all advertisers must follow,” the piece noted as well. “Twitter’s extensive advertising policy states that ads must be honest and accurate. The guidelines prohibit advertisers from misleading people with sensationalized language and deceptive claims. And Twitter bars content that could offend or shock people, among other directives.”
But “Twitter is hostile to the pro-life side,” Rose told LifeZette. “While they claim to be a place for the open discussion of ideas, they use their very vaguely written policies about ‘offensive’ and ‘inflammatory’ content to suppress the side of the life issue that they don’t agree with. I highly doubt all Twitter employees are pro-abortion. In fact, many of them are probably pro-life. But some pro-abortion ideologues in the leadership at Twitter are actively working to suppress pro-life voices, despite the fact that the pro-life position is strongly held by millions of Americans.”
Yet Twitter has given Planned Parenthood, the nation’s largest abortion provider, carte blanche to advertise and promote whatever it desires — even if that means demonizing pro-life men and women as extremists.
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“The biggest fallacy about Planned Parenthood is that it’s a women’s health care provider rather than an abortion chain,” said Rose.
Citing Planned Parenthood’s latest annual report, Rose added, the abortion behemoth provided only 12,000 prenatal services and adoption referrals — in contrast to nearly more than 320,000 abortions.
“The last 10 years of Planned Parenthood’s annual reports show it has focused on growing its abortion numbers by 11 percent, while its breast exams have decreased by 62 percent, its cervical cancer screenings by 74 percent, and its contraception services by 32 percent,” said Rose.
More and more, social media outlets seem to be taking on the role of gatekeeper, compromising, in this case, Live Action’s First Amendment rights.
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Live Action is not the first pro-life group to make charges like this. The Susan B. Anthony List was barred in October 2017 from running a video ad that contained the phrase “killing babies” in reference to abortion, according to a piece in The Daily Caller. “No advertiser is permitted to use the phrase ‘killing babies,'” Twitter told the group, the site reported.
“We know that when people see the truth about abortion, many hearts and minds change.”
“We hope Twitter stops the suppression of pro-life voices and gives us the same platform to speak that they give the abortion industry,” Rose told LifeZette. “Many in the legacy media cheerlead for Planned Parenthood and suppress evidence showing its focus has been on increasing abortions while actually reducing what few women’s health services it does offer.”
“The pro-life movement has been using social media to get around this media bias and take the evidence directly to the American people. We know that when people see the truth about abortion, many hearts and minds change. We just want the opportunity to spread that truth,” she said.
Elizabeth Economou is a former CNBC staff writer and adjunct professor. Follow her on Twitter.
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