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Former abortionist Dr. Anthony Levatino

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August 10, 2020 (LifeSiteNews) – A 2016 Live Action video showing the reality of chemical and surgical abortions was removed by Google-owned YouTube last week and then suddenly reinstated after outcry from pro-life activists. 

The video, which has been viewed almost 1.8 million times on the Google-owned platform, has now been reinstated after the pro-life organization appealed against the removal.

In the video, former abortionist Dr. Anthony Levatino describes four different kinds of abortion, with animated drawings primarily used to convey the brutal reality of the procedures.

Live Action founder and president Lila Rose tweeted about the censorship on Friday evening. 

“The video has been live since 2016, includes medically accurate animations of abortion & is narrated by a former abortionist,” Rose wrote.

In an email sent to Live Action, YouTube said the video had been flagged for review and subsequently found to have violated their “community guidelines.”

“You know what *actually* violates community guidelines?” the Susan B. Anthony List Twitter account posted, “Abortion: The intentional killing of an innocent human person.”

It is not the first time a Live Action video has been censored on the platform.

In 2019, the big-tech giant removed a 2011 Live Action investigative video that showed Planned Parenthood employees agreeing to aid undercover investigators posing as sex traffickers attempting to arrange abortions for underage sex workers.

When censoring that video, YouTube claimed it violated their policy on “nudity or sexual content,” but without any explanation agreed to reinstate the video after Live Action appealed its removal.

“Why do these ‘mistakes’ keep happening to us, @TeamYouTube?” Rose tweeted Friday.

Last year, Google admitted to interference in Ireland’s 2018 abortion referendum after pro-transparency website Project Veritas revealed that YouTube had “blacklisted” a large number of videos on its platform in advance of the referendum while also interfering with search results.

Among the searches affected by interference from Google were “irish catholic,” unborn life,” and “abortion is wrong.” The interference in search results came within one week of the referendum, which allowed abortion nationwide.

Google CEO Sundar Pichai has previously insisted that its censorship tools are managed “algorithmically” and the company doesn't “manually tune” search results. However, when pressed by Florida Congressman Matt Gaetz during an antitrust hearing at the U.S. House of Representatives last month, Pichai admitted that the creation of lists of blocked sites “can involve a manual portion.”