It looks like the "world's largest database in reproductive health" has omitted the word "abortion" from its search function.
While other terms are very searchable, like "birth control," "fertility" and "family planning," POPLINE has decided to make "abortion" a stop word. Rachel at Women's Health News clarifies:
"If you’re not familiar with “stop words,� they are typically words like 'a,' 'an,' and 'the' that are omitted automatically from the search, because they is assumed to have no added value or meaning."
So "abortion" apparently has no value or meaning, at least according to the federal government. A librarian inquired about it after coming up with zero results when she searched for the term and was given this answer: “We recently made all abortion terms stop words. As a federally funded project, we decided this was best for now.�
You know that I think is "best for now"? How about giving women accurate information? How about acknowledging the existence of medical fact, of a legal and safe medical procedure? Ignoring it isn't going to make it go away, people.
As a project of Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, POPLINE receives its funding from USAID. We have the history there. However, "abortion" is searchable on that site; you can guess what comes up.
Thanks to all the readers who alerted us about this!
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This is terrible. I wonder how we can change this. It's like the biggest CPC of all.
That's all weird and fucked up. I'm sure there's something I'm not understanding about the politics of this though --- if they're a federally funded project surely that would mean they're obliged to follow the letter of the law rather than their own obscure sense of morals? What's the reasoning here?
You would think that a federally funded program would have to adhere to the laws... but I've learned that logic very rarely comes into play once you say the "A" word.
I cannot believe this! Covering abortion up as if doesn't exist will only exacerbate the issue. It is delusional to think that by not including abortion as medical fact they are deterring people from having them. Not so! In reality scared and misinformed women will still find a way, and that way will most likely be illegal and dangerous.
btw, i stumbled across this most outrageously appalling and mildly humorous website (its SO inaccurate): this is crazy!
From the USAID website, a little way down, the Biden Amendment:
"No foreign assistance funds may be used to pay for any biomedical research which relates, in whole or in part, to methods of, or the performance of, abortions or involuntary sterilization as a means of family planning."
Everybody like how abortion is on the same level with involuntary sterilization? Because really, they're ethically the same. And there's no such thing as involuntary pregnancy.
/snark, in case my motives were at all suspect.
We've seen just how well dodging and concealing the truth has worked to help women's reproductive health in the past. Pathetic :/.
I just don't understand why universities would allow themselves to be complicit in misleading the general public in this way, whether the program is federally funded or not (and the more I read about USAID, the more I hate it). Johns Hopkins is world-renowned as a science and medical research institute, and it's just monumentally disturbing - and disappointing - that they participate in and endorse this bullshit and censorship. People turn to universities as one of the few remaining institutions concerned with learning, research, and truth, and this really flushes that down the crapper for me.
Popline isn't just blocking search terms - the site also skews results. Try searching for "Plan B." The search goes through, but the vast majority of articles displayed are hostile to emergency contraception. Articles like "Emergency contraception: A reasonable personal choice or a destructive societal influence?" and "Emergency contraception: Overestimated effectiveness and questionable expectations" are at the top of the page while articles like "Easy EC access doesn't increase risky behavior. " are buried further down. Furthermore, of the top 10 articles only 2 are peer reviewed!
@allegra:
Completely agree. Maybe it's just the weather, but this has got me more riled than I expected it to (though it may be something to do with that righteous review of the Dr Seuss film posted up top).
This has made a lot of headlines in the libraryland blogosphere.
The POPLINE database administrator, Debbie Dickon, reportedly wrote in her original reply (to the medical librarian who discovered the snafu in the database):
"In addition to the terms you're already using, you could try using 'Fertility Control, Postconception'. This is the broader term to our 'abortion' terms and most records have both in the keyword fields," she wrote.
Uh-huh. How helpful! I sure would have thought of typing that. "Fertility control, postconception." Yep, I'm sure everyone else looking for information on abortion would have typed those terms in too. Silly, stupid me.
Not sure how helpful it'd be (or if everyone should instead be focusing on the real culprits, USAID) but if we don't flood SOMEBODY's inbox or voicemail, who's going to change anything?
You can contact Ms. Dickson here: Debra L. Dickson
POPLINE Database Manager/AdministratorINFO Project 111 Market Place, Suite 310, Baltimore, MD 21202 ddickson@jhuccp.org Tel: 410-659-6300 / Fax: 410-659-6266
Hang on. I just went to Popline, searched under "abortion" and got 24,943 article results! The articles look legit. Things like "Abortion-seeking behaviour among Nigerian women" and "Prevalence of lifetime abortion and methods of contraception among female sex workers in Bogota, Colombia."
Do you think Popline ended this abortion search term ban due to the public outcry?
Wow this pissed me off. I just submitted a comment via their Contact Us form. If we all do it maybe they will change!
I tried it before contacting them and got "No records found by latest query." I tried it again just now and got the same message. This was on http://db.jhuccp.org/ics-wpd/popweb/.
I tried it before contacting them and got "No records found by latest query." I tried it again just now and got the same message. This was on http://db.jhuccp.org/ics-wpd/popweb/.
Yeah, I just tried it too and...no records found. Wow, this is so ridiculous I almost didn't believe it.
I'm confoozed. Why am I getting abortion article records but no one else is? Is it because I work for a health research organization and somehow I get to see the TRUTH from my work computer? Bizarre.
String_Bean_Jen, it worked for me too. Weird, maybe it's a Jen thing hehe.
String_Bean_Jen and JenThe Fem -- Are you able to access full-text articles or just the index list? I can see the index list which indicates that the term "abortion" occurs 24,953 times in the index but receive a “no records found by latest query� when I attempt to click into the results.
Also, I posted a long-a$$ post at 10:00 AM about Popline and two really disturbing abortion/ fetal homicide bills that passed in the Florida House yesterday (HB257 and HB513). FWIW, I received a message that said the post was accepted and was awaiting approval. What gives?
Here's the relevant Sun-Sentinel article: http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/local/legislature/sfl-flfabortion0403pnapr03,0,3288675.story
String_Bean_Jen and JenThe Fem -- Are you able to access full-text articles or just the index list? I can see the index list which indicates that the term "abortion" occurs 24,953 times in the index but receive a “no records found by latest query� when I attempt to click into the results.
Also, I posted a long-a$$ post at 10:00 AM about Popline and two really disturbing abortion/ fetal homicide bills that passed in the Florida House yesterday (HB257 and HB513). FWIW, I received a message that said the post was accepted and was awaiting approval. What gives?
Here's the relevant Sun-Sentinel article: http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/local/legislature/sfl-flfabortion0403pnapr03,0,3288675.story
String_Bean_Jen and JenThe Fem -- Are you able to access full-text articles or just the index list? I can see the index list which indicates that the term "abortion" occurs 24,953 times in the index but receive a “no records found by latest query� when I attempt to click into the results.
Also, I posted a long-a$$ post at 10:00 AM about Popline and two really disturbing abortion/ fetal homicide bills that passed in the Florida House yesterday (HB257 and HB513). FWIW, I received a message that said the post was accepted and was awaiting approval. What gives?
Here's the relevant Sun-Sentinel article: http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/local/legislature/sfl-flfabortion0403pnapr03,0,3288675.story
It looks like POPLINE has quietly taken out "abortion" from their stop words and is now a searchable term. Woot!
My apologies for the unintended multiple posts...
Stephanie Hess, there are a few returned results that I can click on 'full text' to see the full article. Most I can just click on the number of the article to view the abstract, though. However, that is always the case when one uses an academic database to research the literature, unless you or your organization have a subscription to said database or publication. If you don't have a subscription, you can often purchase the article for a one-off fee.
So I'm confused as to why everyone else is having issues. Unless my organization does have a subscription to Popline, which is entirely possible, but I don't know about it and I've never signed in!
Ah, thanks for the confirmation, Vanessa! Good stuff.
Many thanks for responding, String_Bean_Jean. How interesting! It does appear as if POPLINE has restored access. Just as you described, I can can now access what POPLINE refers to as "full records" (i.e. abstracts) and can even view some full text articles. However, the "Full-Text" links are inconsistent in what they lead to. Some lead directly to a PDF version while others go to the journal web site where the full-text might or might not be available. Some links are dead, probably due to "link-rot".
Frankly I'm surprised to see a well-heeled school like Johns Hopkins using InMagic for a relational database of this stature. They could use a good cataloger too which would substantially improve users' retrieval results and clean up the broken links.
Also, I didn't see any mention mention of institutional subscriptions for POPLINE. From what I can tell, articles have to be purchased by clicking the "Add to Cart" button under each listing. Here is the link to POPLINE's document delivery policy: http://db.jhuccp.org/ics-wpd/popweb/docdel.html
Note that the delivery policy states that articles housed in POPLINE are available only to individuals and institutions in developing countries. Why this particular restriction Aren't any medical professionals, etc. in so-called undeveloped countries that would need this information? [eye roll]
BTW, do you work at a medical library/ information center? I'm asking since I'm currently the Acquisitions Librarian at an academic law library and was wondering about medical librarians' experiences in dealing with medical database vendors. Overall, I've found that online access varies wildly from vendor to vendor. There are many databases that require passwords or IP addresses before users can even access abstracts. It's utterly crazy-making and a PITA because there aren't any formalized standards. If you have any insights, I'd be interested to hear. :)
Major props to Michael J. Klag, MD, MPH
Dean, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health for getting access restored! Check out his statement at http://www.jhsph.edu/publichealthnews/press_releases/2008/popline.org
Interesting press release:
I think I can save Dean Klag some time: this occurred because the global gag rule USAID funding is infected with is fundamentally incompatible with evidence-based information on reproductive health.
When I first read the post, I assumed that this was the result of some administrator at POPLINE deliberately interpreting the letter of the law and the message from USAID in the most absurd form possible so as to make the law and those enforcing it appear more ridiculous. (Well, better would be a page noting the restrictions on USAID funding, but I understand that that would have been a significantly harder change to make quickly than tweaking the stop words list. Hopefully they were planning on such an explanatory page in the future)