“Abortion” keyword blocked from public health database after complaint from U.S. agency
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, Apr 6, 2008 / 05:42 pm (CNA).- Administrators at the John Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health blocked the word “abortion” as a search term in a public health database after the office of a U.S. agency complained about two abortion-related articles in the database, Wired.com reports.

A spokesperson for the government office that lodged the complaint said the block resulted from a misunderstanding.

Tim Parsons, a spokesman for the Maryland school, said, "The items in question had to do with abortion advocacy -- the two items dealing with abortion were removed following this inquiry, and the administrators made a decision to restrict abortion as a search term."

The PopLine search site is funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), a federal office in charge of providing foreign aid, including health care funding, to developing nations.

Bush administration policy denies funding to non-governmental organizations that perform abortions or “actively promote abortion as a method of family planning in other nations.”

Sandra Jordan, director of communications in USAID’s office of population and reproductive health, was unable to identify the two documents that had prompted the complaint.  However, she did say the publications were biased in favor of abortion rights.

Jordan said that the office’s request had been misunderstood, saying database administrators blocked the word “abortion” on their own.

"We're glad they're restoring the search function to the site -- the studies and statistical information are certainly important information to family planning," she said, according to Wired.com.

A search on “abortion” produced nearly 25,000 results from the database, but a search on Thursday resulted in the message “No records found by latest query.”

The school’s dean said in a Friday statement that he would launch an inquiry to determine why the change occurred.

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Subscriber comments:
Published by: spatch3
Central Coast, CA 04/09/2008 10:06 AM EST
I completely support the Bush monarchy, I mean presidency, to censor whatever they deem as un-American. Perhaps if the idea catches on, Google can make Catholic, Catholicism and Pope stop words as well. After all, those words can and are controversial and may cause discomfort if searches result in hits for those people who type them into their computers.

Here’s to many more years of my lord and savior BUSH as emperor!
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Published by: Bob A
Nashville 04/07/2008 07:30 PM EST
The action taken is strange, because if abortion is not a health issue, there is nothing to harm the expectant mother. Of course, there is the death of the unborn child, but that's not a health issue, it's only murder and crimes are not health issues. I call it pretzel thinking
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Published by: Jack Picknell
Burnaby Canada 04/07/2008 01:29 PM EST
Isaiah 29:15
Woe to those who deeply hide their plans from the LORD, And whose deeds are done in a dark place, And they say, "Who sees us?" or "Who knows us?"
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