This is just the lastest example of this administration attepting to define reality by changing language. "We are winning the war!" "The econonomy is recovering!", etc.

Sometimes I think these people ACTUALLY BELIVE that if they pretend something doesn't exist, is really goes away...

Is there any indication that USAID exerted direct or specific pressure on POPLINE/John Hopkins, or did some over-zealous administrator just impose it on his or her own? Which is actually more frightening-- administrative orders like USAID's, if they do have to be obeyed at all, ought be treated at a minimum level, not full and enthusiastic compliance (like Yahoo and Google did for the Chinese). It is this kind of silent, creeping imposition of control that scares me, far more than public fiat from on high.

How could including the word "abortion" as a search term (by which I mean not deliberately blocking it) possibly be defined as "actively promoting abortion"?

Catherine Price is falling for one of the classic blunders: grabbing onto the proffered rationalization for social control and trying to make sense of it on its own terms.

Seriously, it doesn't mean anything. When you read USAID policy, think "blah blah totalitarian control blah blah." Reading it closely in order to try to make sense of what the people who set the policy really want is like Inspector Clouseau bent down to the ground, looking through the magnifying glass as he follows the footprints one at a time, unaware the whole time that he's heading toward a cliff.

We saw the same thing with Bush's "faith-based initiative" crap. "Oh," said well-meaning liberal Americans, "he says he wants it to be non-denominational, in order to bring more Americans into public service. That's good, right?"

When authoritarian theocratic zealots try to do anything with the levers of power, it's always with the intention of pushing a little harder next time, and a little harder, and a little harder.

The idea that fighting back and getting abortion included as a search term was a victory (when really, the fact that there had to be a fight to get it included as a normal medical search term -- such as "spontaneous abortion" was evidence of real backsliding) shows just how much damage has already been done. Scary.

I think that would be "mud-control, pre-entrance," but otherwise an excellent analogy.

I just love this notion that if you simply ban a word, in this case abortion, somehow the thing itself ceases to exist. No wonder the world's so screwed up.