Apple insists Siri is \'pro-life\'

Apple London - Arabstoday Apple today insisted that its iPhone voice activation app is 'pro-life' and that refusal to find abortion clinics is merely a technical glitch. The technology giant had under fire from American civil liberty campaigners after bloggers testing out Siri discovered it replies blankly when asked for information on terminations and birth control. The omission stood in contrast to iPhone 4GS users  who got responses when asking for phone numbers of the nearest shooting range. But Apple today insisted, it was not a political stance. 'These are not intentional omissions meant to offend anyone,' a spokesman told the New York Times. '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' One of Siri’s creators, Norman Winarsky, believes the problem may lie with the web services the California firm has partnered with, claiming that ‘Apple probably hasn't paid much attention to all the results that come up’. Whatever the reason, it has led to the launching of a petition, by the American Civil Liberties Union. The group have asked Apple to fix the 'glitch' so that it can help people find the 'reproductive resources' that they need. The ALU wrote in a blog post: 'According to numerous sources, when asked to find an abortion clinic, even in areas where such clinics are nearby, Siri either draws a blank, or worse, refers women to pregnancy crisis centres. 'As we've blogged about in the past, pregnancy crisis centres, which often bill themselves as resources for abortion care, do not provide or refer for abortion. 'They are notorious for providing false and misleading information about abortion. Further, if you'd like to avoid getting pregnant, Siri isn't much use, either. When asked where one can find birth control, apparently Siri comes up blank.' There are several theories as to the origin of the 'glitch'. Some bloggers have questioned whether the late Apple co-founder Steve Jobs programmed it into Siri. Jobs, who was adopted at birth, once expressed his enormours gratitude to his biological mother for giving him birth rather than having him aborted. But others believe it may be down to the deals Apple signs with the web services that generate the results. Norman Winarksy, one of the founders of Siri before it was bought out by Apple in 2010, told the New York Times: 'At its core, Siri works by translating a spoken request into text, singling out keywords and then using various Web services to suggest answers. 'Those answers would be coming from the Web services that Siri is connecting to, not necessarily Apple. 'My guess at what’s happening here is that Apple has made deals with Web services that provide local business information, and Apple probably hasn’t paid much attention to all the results that come up.'