The fact-check was conducted by three doctors who determined an anti-abortion activist's claim that "abortion is never medically necessary" was false.

Dado Ruvic / Reuters

Facebook on Wednesday removed a fact-check conducted by doctors of an anti-abortion activist's video, which falsely claimed abortion was never necessary to save women's lives, after four Republican senators complained.

Republican Sens. Ted Cruz, Josh Hawley, Kevin Cramer, and Mike Braun sent a letter to Facebook on Wednesday, accusing the company of censorship and bias against conservatives. At issue were two videos published by anti-abortion group Live Action and its founder, Lila Rose, which were rated as inaccurate by an independent fact-checking group.

BREAKING: @Facebook has rated Live Action and @LilaGraceRose’s videos that state “abortion is never medically necessary” as FALSE. Their 3rd-party fact-checkers? Two ABORTIONISTS who profit from the killing of innocent children.

The fact-check, conducted by three doctors working with Health Feedback, was published on Aug. 30, and a link appeared next to the videos on Facebook, notifying viewers of the inaccurate information. More than 2,000 people who follow the Live Action page received a notification that the content had been rated as false, according to the group, which also said it was notified that its page had been categorized as "false news." "Your Page has reduced distribution and other restrictions because of repeated sharing of false news. People will also be able to see if a Page has a history of sharing false news," Facebook told the group, according to a screenshot it published on its website.

Though Rose said abortion is never medically necessary, the fact-check pointed out several medical conditions including pre-eclampsia, HELLP syndrome, and placenta previa can make abortion necessary to save a mother's life. Rose has said in these scenarios, a doctor could instead deliver a baby early. But that's only possible when a fetus has developed enough to survive outside the womb, typically around 24 weeks, the fact-check said. The doctors also pointed to the case of Savita Halappanavar, a woman in Ireland who died after being denied an abortion. Live Action and the Republican senators argued that the fact-check could not be fair because two of the people involved had ties to pro-choice organizations. Dr. Daniel Grossman is an obstetrics and gynecology professor at the University of California, San Francisco, and is on the board of NARAL Pro-Choice America foundation. Dr. Robyn Schickler is a fellow with Physicians for Reproductive Health, a group that works to "improve access to comprehensive reproductive health care, including contraception and abortion, especially to meet the health care needs of economically disadvantaged patients." Rose disparaged them as abortionists and liars.

This is despite the fact that thousands of medical experts BACK @LiveAction’s statements, & the abortionists blatantly lied about our position in their article Facebook is aggressively & publicly siding w/ the abortion lobby & actively shutting down pro-life educational content

"Facebook is aggressively & publicly siding w/ the abortion lobby & actively shutting down pro-life educational content," she tweeted. And the senators said "no reasonable person would describe Grossman or Schickler as neutral or objective when it comes to the issue of abortion" in their letter. The senators added that fact-checkers used by Facebook commit to a code of principles that prohibits them from advocating or taking policy positions on issues they fact-check.

Health Feedback