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Johns Hopkins Bows To USAID Censorship Push
An anonymous reader sends us to Wired's Threat Level blog for news that the federally funded Popline database at Johns Hopkins University, said to be the largest source of information on reproductive health, has begun censoring searches that contain the word "abortion." Apparently they took this stop due to pressure from USAID, the federal agency that provides foreign aid to developing nations. From Wired: "Under a Reagan-era policy revived by President Bush in 2001, USAID denies funding to non-governmental organizations that perform abortions, or that 'actively promote abortion as a method of family planning in other nations.' A librarian at the University of California at San Francisco noticed the new censorship on Monday, while carrying out a routine research request on behalf of academics and researchers at the university. The search term had functioned properly as of January. Puzzled, she contacted the manager of the database,... who replied in an April 1st e-mail that the university had recently begun blocking the search term because the database received federal funding."
I have a better idea, let's choose individual candidates that support our views. In fact, remove party affiliations from the ballot altogether. If you can't remember their name, you shouldn't be voting for them.
What I don't understand is, why are they doing this censorship so quietly and compliantly? It seems like the principled thing would have been to fight it on free speech grounds. Short of that, why not set up the DB to respond with a message like, "All information about abortion has been censored by executive order of President Bush"? They would have been technically in compliance with the policy, but could have made a point (and drawn others to their cause).
If they shut down the database for 1 day, it would make an impact.
Another idea:
See if there are any federal laws that require them to not censor, then sue.
The judge will have 3 choices:
Order them to comply with the no-censorship, and violate the anti-abortion rule.
Order them to comply with the anti-abortion rule, and violate the no-censorship rule.
Order them to comply with both rules in the only way possible: Not use federal money.
The latter may result in the project being shut down, which will generate the necessary political heat to get this problem solved in a reasonable manner.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
It's the universal nostrum of the intellectually lazy: if you don't know what to do, then do some damage. Then you can tell yourself you are taking bold, vigorous steps, even if they happen to be in the wrong direction.
Is drug abuse to complicated an issue? Then lets have zero tolerance, at least for people who don't have the means to avoid the point at which we start applying it.
Don't know how to secure the borders? Then seize some people who are in the wrong place at the wrong time and send them out to be tortured.
Nuclear non-proliferation cutting into your brush clearing time? Start a war, which is much more interesting than intelligence gathering or diplomacy.
Most people just assume you know what you're doing. It'll probably take, oh, six or seven years for them to figure out how badly you've screwed things up, and by then it's almost not your problem any more. With luck the cleaning up your mess will be so painful people will blame your successor.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
Your critics have (correctly) understood that there is no functional difference between a condom and a morning after pill.
The only difference is in the mystical view point over when it is a baby and when it is not. All eggs and all sperm have the potential to eventually become a person. Fertilization is just one of many steps on the road of development. You obviously don't consider an unfertilized egg to be a person. Why not?
I mean, in reality, if every fertilized egg were truly a person, well then God must be the biggest mass murderer in history, because last time I checked, the stats said somewhere over 66% of all fertilized eggs fail to implant correctly. That means that over two thirds of all people are never born. That's just not right. I submit the problem is your defining something as a person long before you should. It's common practice among women (and you might not know this), to not discuss a pregnancy (except with a doctor/midwife) before the first trimester is over. Mostly it's to avoid making the devastation of a miscarriage any worse than it already is. They're that common, that most of the time, if a woman miscarries, you would never even know about it.
Now, to me, it doesn't make any sense to refer to a fetus as a baby, or consider it worthy of having human rights, until it has a functional brain. Once the brain is there are working, it is now possible for it to sustain life and become a person. There's a certain symmetry there between life and death. You're not alive until you have a brain, and not alive after you've lost it.
Fanatically anti-fanatical
from their rectums.
Taken from a recent press release:
Statement Regarding POPLINE Database
I was informed this morning that the word "abortion" was blocked as a search term in the POPLINE family planning database administered by the Bloomberg School's Center for Communication Programs. POPLINE provides evidence-based information on reproductive health and family planning and is the world's largest database on these issues.
USAID, which funds POPLINE, found two items in the database related to abortion that did not fit POPLINE criteria. The agency then made an inquiry to POPLINE administrators. Following this inquiry, the POPLINE administrators at the Center for Communication Programs made the decision to restrict abortion as a search term.
I could not disagree more strongly with this decision, and I have directed that the POPLINE administrators restore "abortion" as a search term immediately. I will also launch an inquiry to determine why this change occurred.
The Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health is dedicated to the advancement and dissemination of knowledge and not its restriction.
Sincerely,
Michael J. Klag, MD, MPH
Dean, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health