I won’t even comment on this story, just share.
Johns Hopkins University said Friday that it had programmed its computers to ignore the word “abortion†in searches of a large, publicly financed database of information on reproductive health after federal officials raised questions about two articles in the database.
You can read the full story here: Health Database Set Up to Ignore ‘Abortion’
OK I have to comment. This doesn’t even make sense; regardless of your position on the subject, you can’t whitewash and censor.
It’s one thing to be against abortion. I can understand having that opinion. It’s another to be against knowledge and education and basic vocabulary. I know it hasn’t dawned on the rocket scientists who run our government, but a little more education might prevent some of those abortions.
I’m disappointed in Johns Hopkins, particularly with their reputation as a leading medical university. The government has no place censoring information like this, not in a supposedly free and democratic society. Attacking the expression of ideas and information is something that usually only happens under a dictatorship. Hopkins should have stood up to the scrutiny.
This is just another example of how this administration has injected knee-jerk fundamentalism into public policy more so than at any other time in our history. How they have systematically worked to chip away at individual rights. I’m hoping November signals the end of this era of ultra-conservatism and a return to the middle. Some common sense is desperately needed to reverse our regression.