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Database restricted "abortion" searches
USAID did not call for either keyword or article removal
Issue date: 4/10/08
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."
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."
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