Database restricted "abortion" searches
USAID did not call for either keyword or article removal
Further investigation into the banning of "abortion" as a search term
from the Hopkins-run reproductive-health database, POPLINE, has
revealed that the government agency that funds the site never asked for
the block. On
Friday, Hopkins's Bloomberg School of Public Health removed "abortion"
as a stop-word after officials discovered the database's moderators had
blocked it as a keyword back in February. When the United
States Agency for International Development (USAID), which funds
POPLINE, found two articles advocating abortion in the database, it
contacted system moderators at the Bloomberg School. The
Center for Communication Programs at Bloomberg proceeded to remove the
two articles in addition to five other articles associating abortion
with human rights. The Center then placed "abortion" on a list
of stop-words - words like "a," "an" and "the" - that search engines
are designed to ignore.
A USAID spokesperson said that the
agency did not ask for the article's removal or for the removal of
"abortion" as a keyword, and that "the USAID just inquired about some
of the article's criteria for inclusion."
The spokesperson said the USAID did not ask for the articles' removal or for the removal of "abortion" as a keyword.
The USAID is prohibited by law from funding organizations or projects that advocate abortion as a means for family planning.
"In
my judgment, the decision to block the search term was an overreaction
on the part of the POPLINE staff," said Michael Klag, dean of the
Bloomberg School in a press release Tuesday. "Other measures are
available to us for ensuring that items in the POPLINE database meet
USAID guidelines."
Klag learned of the block on Friday, nearly
two months after its initiation, and immediately called for it to be
lifted, saying the move "was not consistent with the values of the
Bloomberg School of Public Health. Our school is dedicated to the
advancement and dissemination of knowledge and not to its restriction."
Klag was unavailable for direct comment before press time.POPLINE moderators acted without consulting administrators at the Bloomberg School."The
blocking of the term was a step taken without informing the management
of the Public Health school," said Tim Parsons, a spokesman for the
Bloomberg School.
The matter came to Klag's attention after
librarians at the Medical Center of the University of California, San
Francisco began circulating this information among their co-workers. In
an April 6 report, the New York Times said that following inquiries
into what initially seemed like a technical difficulty, the UCSF
librarians were informed in a Tuesday email from Debra Dickson, senior
programmer analyst at POPLINE, that "abortion" had become one of the
database's stop words.
Debra Dickson was not available for a comment at press time.
According
to Dickson's e-mail, the block was temporary and was meant to bring
POPLINE into better accordance with USAID regulations.
Reactions
to the block have been mostly critical. Posts to a discussion board at
Wired.com claimed the block was a violation of first amendment rights
and that the U.S. government was becoming as stifling as China's.
"Freedom of the press, unless of course, you receive federal funds!" one anonymous poster wrote.
Another alleged grad school applicant wrote on the site that he would withdraw his application to Hopkins following this news.
For
30 years, the Bloomberg School has administered POPLINE, the world's
largest database on reproduction and family development, though the
project essentially belongs to USAID.
"We have an agreement with
USAID to manage the POPLINE database, and there are agreements about
what goes in and what should not be there," Parsons said.
Abortion advocacy is not permitted under federal laws passed in 1973.
"USAID
policy is, anything that is abortion statistics or care is completely
appropriate," the USAID Spokesperson said. "Because of the laws imposed
on us, we're not allowed to support abortion advocacy."
The
seven articles removed from the database came from the winter 2008
edition of A: the Abortion Magazine, which focused on abortion as a
human right.
"The Center for Communication Programs and the
Bloomberg School of Public Health deeply regret the action that was
taken to restrict the use of the search term. Unfettered access to
information is essential for informed debate and rational choices in
any field, especially in family planning," Klag said. "We will work
with our staff to reinforce their appreciation of the importance of
academic integrity and of the central role of universities in our
society in the dissemination of information."
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