University Helps Censor "One-Sided" Science

by Diane Farsetta — April 7, 2008 - 12:38pm

Administrators of "Popline," the "world's largest scientific database on reproductive health," which is housed at the Johns Hopkins University's School of Public Health, "blocked the word 'abortion' as a search term after receiving a complaint from the Bush administration over two abortion-related articles listed in the database." The search block has since been removed, with the university's public health dean stressing the school's commitment "to the advancement and dissemination of knowledge and not its restriction." But the two studies that prompted the complaint have been removed from the database. Popline is funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID). In 2001, President Bush revived the "gag rule," which bans U.S. government funding for groups that perform or "actively promote abortion." A USAID spokesperson said she "could not identify the documents that prompted her office's complaint, but said the publications were one-sided in favor of abortion rights."

Main Source:

Wired blog "Threat Level," April 4, 2008

Comments

Turns out, it was seven articles

Submitted by Diane Farsetta on April 9, 2008 - 3:41pm.

From NPR:

[Johns Hopkins' Michael] Klag says the seven articles that triggered the restriction in late February were from an issue of A, the Abortion Magazine, which is published by Ipas, an international reproductive rights organization.