How Popular AI Chatbots Recommend Pro-life Websites to Pregnant People
AlgorithmWatch journalists tested four commercial chatbots with three fictional personas facing an unwanted pregnancy (a 16-year-old student, a 28-year-old professional, a 38-year-old unemployed mother of two) in Germany, Italy and the United Kingdom. The investigation examined which sources the chatbots cited and whether they distinguished official health authorities from advocacy organisations. It found that the chatbots presented abortion as an option and recommended professional help, but often linked to anti-abortion content without identifying it as such.
Publisher
AlgorithmWatch
Published
22 Aug 2026
Added
1 week ago
DOI
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Key Findings
- 270 responses from ChatGPT-5, Gemini 3, Grok 4.3 and Claude Sonnet 4.8 to seven prompts derived from the most-searched Google queries on abortion, in English, German and Italian
- In at least one in four of all queries the chatbots included at least one link to an anti-abortion website; prompts about other women's experiences produced the most problematic responses
- Profemina, a counselling service with ties to Heartbeat International, appeared in around 17% of responses across languages and models, usually without a warning about its stance
- Caritas was named in 11 of 12 German conversations as a counselling option, although it does not issue the counselling certificate (Beratungsschein) that German law requires before an abortion
- Official sources were not consistently included in Italian and UK responses; all four models suggested professional medical help at least once but kept giving medical advice themselves
Methodology Notes
Journalistic audit (AlgorithmWatch fellowship story): dedicated accounts, fresh browser sessions, IP addresses/VPNs per country, every conversation logged and saved. Seven prompts built with an SEO specialist from search trends. Not peer-reviewed; small persona set; test dates not stated in the article. Model version names are as stated by AlgorithmWatch.
Sources
AlgorithmWatch investigation(opens in a new tab) (primary)
EU Perspectives: MEPs question the Commission(opens in a new tab) (8 Oct 2026)
Archived snapshot (Wayback Machine)(opens in a new tab) — preserved against link rot
Authors
Marta Abbà, Mayya Chernobylskaya, Carlotta Dotto
Tags
Cite This
APA
Marta Abbà, Mayya Chernobylskaya, Carlotta Dotto. (2026). How Popular AI Chatbots Recommend Pro-life Websites to Pregnant People. AlgorithmWatch. https://algorithmwatch.org/en/chatbots-abortion-ai/