"Abortion" scrapped as research descriptor on POPLINE (govt-spons. database)

[flor de jasmim]

There are so many instances in which the government is trying to eliminate our access to information, or to destroy the information itself. This is another of such instances:

POPLINE restricts the word ‘Abortion’ from the government funded database
By: John Amato on Thursday, April 3rd, 2008 at 5:05 PM - PDT A medical librarian, who ran a typical search on POPLINE, (the world’s largest database on reproductive health) found something very disturbing. The term “abortion” had been pretty much blocked from its database for normal searches . Go here and try the search. I did and got “No records found by latest query.”

What is POPLINE?

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database on reproductive health, containing citations with abstracts to scientific articles, reports, books, and unpublished reports in the field of population, family planning, and related health issues. POPLINE is maintained by the INFO Project at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health/Center for Communication Programs and is funded by the United States Agency for International Development. (USAID).

The e-mail exchange below is fairly straight-forward: a governmental database on Population, POPLINE (POPulation OnLINE) has been changed so that one can no longer search the term “abortion.” As the representative from POPLINE states, “As a federally funded project, we decided this was best for now.”

READ MORE HERE: http://www.crooksandliars.com/2008/04/03/popline-restricts-the-word-abortion-from-the-government-funded-database/


As a researcher I am BEYOND appalled, and as a citizen I am OUTRAGED.