Perhaps one of the most novel aspects of the recently released iPhone 4S is the Siri app, which allows you to ask your phone questions and then hear your phone answer them – a nascent form of artificial intelligence. However, as great as this technology is, the ACLU is quite upset over the fact that the app doesn’t appear to be abortion friendly. While the app will quickly tell where to find the best Thai food, the closest ExxonMobil gas station, or a Presbyterian church, it won’t answer questions about abortion.
Think about it. You can ask your phone, “Where is the closest Wal-Mart?” And via Siri, a female voice will tell you where the closest Wal-Mart is. You can also ask your phone to call a certain person in your contact list or to text them, and it will be done. You can even ask Siri to set an appointment on your calendar for an upcoming event, and that will be done as well.
But one thing Siri apparently won’t do is tell women where they can go to be taken advantage of by an abortionist. And because of this, the ACLU has started a petition to get Apple to update Siri so that women can use their phones to ask where they can abort their pre-born children.
Up to the same game that many leftist groups like to play these days, the ACLU is applying pressure to a private company just because it isn’t following every jot and tittle of the ACLU’s own political mission—a mission to ensure that women find an abortion as quickly as possible any time they think of having one.
Would the ACLU have been so concerned if the app didn’t provide directions to the nearest pro-life pregnancy resource center? (I think we all know the answer to that question.)
There is something sorely amiss in the ACLU’s thinking if it can’t imagine the benefits of technology without feeling compelled to coerce tech companies to couple those benefits with death.