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Apple: Siri isn't anti-abortion

Voice command app accused of hiding clinics

Apple is not using its voice search app Siri to save unborn foetuses, a spokeswoman told the New York Times yesterday, flatly denying rumours that the service had a political agenda.

Claims that the iPhone 4S's voice assistant app Siri was anti-abortion surfaced on the web this week after tests by bloggers suggested that it was hiding abortion clinics and contraception advice from American women. In one particular test, a Siri search for abortion clinics in Manhattan turned up no results, but Google search for an abortion clinic in the area revealed seven potential clinics and contraception advice. Siri does of course draw upon Google results as one source for its answers.

Noting that Siri doesn't shy away from the darker side of human life – it will give you advice on where to bury a body and will offer prostitute services to those who say they're lonely – interwebbers have claimed that the search app was pushing some sort of pro-life agenda.

But Siri was not intentionally omitting anything, Apple rep Natalie Kerri told the NYT, and in no way was Cupertino trying to protect God's precious gift of life by stopping the murder of the unborn.

Siri is a beta service, she explained, adding that there are no intentional omissions in its search results.

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. 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.

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