Sixty-eight Members of the European Parliament have submitted three written questions to the European Commission questioning whether artificial intelligence chatbots that direct pregnant women to pro-life websites should be regulated. This was reported by The Epoch Times on October 23, and the legal organization ADF International has denounced the initiative as an attempt to censor pro-life content.
According to the newspaper, the questions were backed by left-wing and center-left groups, by members of the centrist Renew Europe group, and by an MEP from the European People’s Party. In the first, the signatories ask the Commission to clarify whether general-purpose chatbots, such as ChatGPT or Grok, could pose a «systemic risk» under the Artificial Intelligence Act and, in the case of ChatGPT, under the Digital Services Act. The second questions the Community executive on whether it is aware of the AlgorithmWatch report and what measures it has taken in this regard, and the third, on what other steps it plans to take to ensure the reliability of the information provided by these systems and to curb possible foreign influence through them.
The starting point is precisely that AlgorithmWatch report, which claims that chatbots «blur the line between official health information and anti-abortion advocacy» when asked about an unwanted pregnancy. ADF International summarized on the social network X that the MEPs intend to restrict artificial intelligence from recommending «anti-abortion» information, and warned that these tools should not be censored to present abortion as the only «choice.»
Adina Portaru, Europe Director of ADF International, told The Epoch Times that «this latest attempt at censorship is alarming.» In a statement released by the organization, she added that when women turn to chatbots for information about their pregnancy and available resources, «the responses they receive should not be biased to show only pro-abortion content.» Portaru also considered it concerning that pro-life resources are excluded from ChatGPT, Grok, and similar programs, because «it prevents women from discovering care options that could truly help them,» such as pregnancy help centers, pro-life medical professionals, and organizations that provide financial assistance to expectant mothers.
For her part, Andrea Trudden of Heartbeat International told the same newspaper that those pushing the initiative «are simply not happy that pregnancy centers appear as responses to women.» According to Trudden, what they want is to hide them so that women do not see them as an option.
The Epoch Times also obtained the European Commission’s response. A spokesperson, whose name was not provided, explained that the obligations of the Digital Services Act and the Artificial Intelligence Act «operate in a complementary manner.» The spokesperson did not confirm that the Community executive intends to use its powers against pro-life information, but neither did she explicitly rule out regulatory action on chatbot recommendations.
The newspaper also conducted its own tests with ChatGPT, Grok, Claude, and Gemini. When asked what to do in the case of an unwanted pregnancy, all four systems offered three options: continuing the pregnancy, adoption, or abortion. The parliamentary questions must be answered in writing by the Commission, whose response is still pending.