iPhone's Siri can direct you to viagra, but not abortion clinics

Siri, the iPhone digital assistant, has become the target of controversy and civil liberties campaigners this week. Why? Siri, apparently, can find customers the numbers of escort services or places where the potency drug Viagra can be purchased, but it's clueless about the birth control pill and abortion clinics.

Phone this service to ask about pregnancy termination, the American Civil Liberties Union says, and you'll be told Siri could not find any numbers for abortion clinics. The Civil Liberties Union started an online petition to "fix the service": "If Siri can tell us about Viagra, it should not provide bad or no information about contraceptives or abortion care. Send a message to Apple: Fix Siri." And there's more.

The group wrote a blog post saying: "Although it isn't clear that Apple is intentionally trying to promote an anti-choice agenda, it is distressing that Siri can point you to Viagra, but not the Pill, or help you find an escort, but not an abortion clinic. We're confident that the developers at Apple want to provide iPhone users with accurate information."

Apple, meanwhile, says that Siri's failure to direct customers to abortion clinics was not deliberate. Apple spokeswoman Natalie Harrison declared: "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."

CNN put the service to the test and found out that Siri could provide info about where to buy condoms, but indeed, it couldn't find any abortion clinics. Interesting. Personally, I understand all about disliking abortion, but I don't see how escort services are any better and of course, if Siri truly wants to limit the information customers can obtain because of some ethical agenda, they should make that perfectly clear. Still, there are worse things in the world. And I am sure that pregnant women who truly want to have an abortion will have no trouble finding out where to get one elsewhere.