AI chatbots regularly link pregnant users to anti-abortion websites without disclosure
Key Points
- An AlgorithmWatch investigation found that ChatGPT, Gemini, Grok, and Claude frequently link to anti-abortion organizations when answering questions about unplanned pregnancies.
- In at least one in four queries, the chatbots included links to anti-abortion websites. The group Profemina showed up particularly often.
- The chatbots regularly failed to disclose these sources' ideological stance. In some cases, they recommended an organization and warned against it in the same conversation.
An investigation by AlgorithmWatch found that ChatGPT, Gemini, Grok, and Claude frequently link to anti-abortion organizations when answering questions about unplanned pregnancy, without disclosing those groups' ideological stance.
When a pregnant person asks an AI chatbot for advice, the response sounds empathetic and balanced, and the links look legitimate. But a cross-country investigation by AlgorithmWatch found otherwise. In at least one out of every four queries, the chatbots included a link to an anti-abortion website without distinguishing between official health authorities and ideologically driven organizations.
The researchers tested ChatGPT-5 (OpenAI), Gemini 3 (Google), Grok 4.3 (xAI), and Claude Sonnet 4.8 (Anthropic). Three fictional personas dealing with unplanned pregnancies asked questions in English, German, and Italian, producing 270 responses for analysis.
Profemina looks credible but pushes an anti-abortion agenda
The organization Profemina showed up in about 17 percent of all responses. According to AlgorithmWatch, the group has ties to Heartbeat International, one of the oldest anti-abortion organizations in the United States. In most conversations, the chatbots didn't flag this connection. Only when pressed did ChatGPT acknowledge that Profemina is "not a neutral medical source" and "has a stance aimed at discouraging abortion or putting it under strong moral scrutiny."
Gemini linked to Profemina five times in a single conversation, shared a graphic from the group's website, and then warned about that very same source later in the same chat. Claude behaved similarly, issuing warnings and linking to the organization at the same time.
In 33 percent of German-language and 29 percent of Italian-language queries asking for personal experiences, the chatbots linked to Profemina. The organization did not respond to requests for comment.
German users get sent to counseling centers that can't help them
In eleven out of twelve German-language conversations, the chatbots recommended Caritas for pregnancy counseling. But Caritas doesn't issue the counseling certificate that German law requires before a person can obtain a legal abortion within the first twelve weeks. Someone who goes to Caritas first and only then learns the certificate won't be issued could lose critical time.
ChatGPT called Caritas a "recognized" organization for mandatory counseling, listing it alongside Pro Familia as an equal option. AlgorithmWatch suspects Caritas's large digital footprint, with roughly 300 diocesan counseling centers across Germany, may be why the models keep surfacing it.
Google and OpenAI pointed to their policy guidelines, which don't specifically address abortion-related queries. An OpenAI spokesperson said GPT-5.5, which shipped after the testing period, is "the best so far at taking user context, such as gender, into account." Anthropic and xAI did not respond.
AI responses act as unaccountable gatekeepers
What this investigation found about abortion applies to other sensitive topics too. AI-generated answers, even those with search built in, are black boxes shaped by training data, cultural weightings, and outside manipulation.
The empathetic tone and apparent completeness make these responses feel trustworthy to non-experts. Research shows that Google's AI-generated answers dramatically cut clicks to underlying sources, meaning users rarely question what they're told. That's what separates AI chatbots from traditional search engines. A court in Munich ruled that limited liability protections designed for search engines don't apply and that AI-generated answers must be treated as original content.
Germany's media regulators agree, classifying AI search engines and chatbots as content providers with full legal responsibility. The AlgorithmWatch investigation shows how hard those obligations would be to meet, given problems that may be nearly impossible to fix on a technical level.
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