{"id":12519,"date":"2008-04-03T18:15:01","date_gmt":"2008-04-04T01:15:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/2008\/04\/03\/the-search-term-that-dare-not-speak-its-name.html"},"modified":"2008-04-03T18:15:01","modified_gmt":"2008-04-04T01:15:01","slug":"the_search_term_that_dare","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2008\/04\/03\/the_search_term_that_dare.html","title":{"rendered":"The search term that dare not speak its name"},"content":{"rendered":"

Hey, don’t the Chinese do this kind of thing related to “Tibet” and “Tiananmen Square”?<\/p>\n

U.S. Funded Health Search Engine Blocks ‘Abortion’ | Threat Level from Wired.com<\/a> <\/p>\n

\n

A U.S. government-funded medical information site that bills itself as the world’s largest database on reproductive health has quietly begun to block searches on the word “abortion,” concealing nearly 25,000 search results.<\/p>\n

Called Popline,<\/a> the search site is run by the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in Maryland. It’s funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development, or USAID, the federal office in charge of providing foreign aid, including health care funding, to developing nations.<\/p>\n

The massive database indexes a broad range of reproductive health literature, including titles like “Previous abortion and the risk of low birth weight and preterm births,” and “Abortion in the United States: Incidence and access to services, 2005.”<\/p>\n

But on Thursday, a search on “abortion” was producing only the message “No records found by latest query.”<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

 <\/p>\n

The database manager says it’s because of federal funding. USAID is forbidden, by executive order, from funding NGOs that perform abortions or “actively promote abortion as a method of family planning in other nations.”<\/p>\n

\n

“We recently made all abortion terms stop words,” Dickson wrote in a note to Gloria Won, the UCSF medical center librarian making the inquiry. “As a federally funded project, we decided this was best for now.”<\/p>\n

There was no notice of the change on the site.<\/p>\n

Dickson suggested other kinds of more obscure search strategies and alternative words to get around the keyword blocking.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

This isn’t an advice line, or a political advocacy site. Popline touts itself as “Your connection to the world’s reproductive health literature,” and “the world’s largest database on reproductive health, containing citations with abstracts to scientific articles, reports, books, and unpublished reports in the field of population, family planning, and related health issues. “<\/p>\n

Except, of course, if you try to find them using the “A” word.<\/p>\n

Whether this is an excellent example of the “chilling effect” (folks self-censoring for fear of breaking the rules), or of the Bush Administration once again demonstrating its desire to reframe scientific information only in acceptable ideological limits, it’s outrageous.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Hey, don’t the Chinese do this kind of thing related to “Tibet” and “Tiananmen Square”? U.S. Funded Health Search Engine Blocks ‘Abortion’ | Threat Level from Wired.com  A U.S. government-funded…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[70,9,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12519","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-health-science","category-politics-law","category-zt-pc"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":12515,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2008\/04\/04\/chilling_effect_2.html","url_meta":{"origin":12519,"position":0},"title":"Chilling effect","author":"***Dave","date":"Fri 4-Apr-08 2:57pm","format":false,"excerpt":"It turns out the Popline kerfuffle was, in fact, an excellent example of the \"chilling effect.\" That's what happens when a subject becomes forbidden by those in power to talk...","rel":"","context":"In "Health Science"","block_context":{"text":"Health Science","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/health\/health-science"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":28075,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2012\/06\/01\/its-not-just-about-breast-cancer-screening.html","url_meta":{"origin":12519,"position":1},"title":"It's not just about breast cancer screening","author":"***Dave","date":"Fri 1-Jun-12 7:34pm","format":false,"excerpt":"I've said this before, but it's worth saying again. \u00a0Arguing in support of of Planned Parenthood because they do things other than abortions or contraception has some value (because it's true), but making the argument just about that is, as noted below, conceding that those services are somehow shameful, wrong,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":13891,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2009\/02\/23\/taxpayer-funded-scientific-research-wants-to-be-free.html","url_meta":{"origin":12519,"position":2},"title":"Taxpayer-funded scientific research wants to be free","author":"***Dave","date":"Mon 23-Feb-09 3:29pm","format":false,"excerpt":"But some folks who want to make money off of it don't want it to be free. Congressional Representative John Conyers (D-MI) has re-introduced a bill (HR801) that essentially would negate the NIH policy concerning depositing research in OA repositories. Last week, the Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee (Rep.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Intellectual Property"","block_context":{"text":"Intellectual Property","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/media\/media-intellectual-property"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":133552,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2017\/05\/26\/unlocked.html","url_meta":{"origin":12519,"position":3},"title":""Unlocked"","author":"***Dave","date":"Fri 26-May-17 8:55am","format":false,"excerpt":"A short film directed by Joss Whedon about the realities of shutting down Planned Parenthood by choking off the state and federal funding for its work as women's health clinics (none of which funding goes to the abortion services it also provides).And, as a real life example, we have Iowa\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":133851,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2017\/07\/14\/tweetizen-trump-2017-07-14-happy-bastille-day.html","url_meta":{"origin":12519,"position":4},"title":"Tweetizen Trump – 2017-07-14: "Happy Bastille Day!"","author":"***Dave","date":"Fri 14-Jul-17 3:49pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Hope we won't be seeing any angry mobs charging any government buildings today, Donald!I've been only partially following your tweets the past couple of days, Donald, because most of them were trip PR from your jaunt over to France (nice limo! nice chauffeur! nice band! nice swords! nice restaurant!). But\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":130506,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2016\/04\/28\/religious-freedom-vs-medical-freedom.html","url_meta":{"origin":12519,"position":5},"title":"Religious freedom vs medical freedom","author":"***Dave","date":"Thu 28-Apr-16 9:15am","format":false,"excerpt":"While most of the \"religious freedom\" noises the last year or two have been about individuals and mom-and-pop stores wanting to deny service to sinners gay people, up at the large organization level it's been religious-owned (or -imaged) companies fighting the previous culture war around reproductive issues.One story that has\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12519","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12519"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12519\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12519"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12519"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12519"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}