Sunday, April 06, 2008

Holy Crap?

Yesterday, we talked about, Popline, the federally funded reproductive health database that scrubbed the word "abortion" after the feds who fund the database raised questions about two articles therein.

In the NYT article about the controversy, we became acquainted with one Debra L. Dickson:
“We recently made all abortion terms stop words,” Debra L. Dickson, a Popline manager, wrote. “As a federally funded project, we decided this was best for now.”...

Ms. Dickson suggested that instead of using “abortion,” librarians could use other terms like “fertility control, postconception” or “pregnancy, unwanted.”
In comments, Nostradamus offered some information and raised some questions:

1. A Debra L. Dickson serves as a contact for a Maryland charity .

2. The charity offers an interesting book for sale by one Debra L. Dickson.

4. Is it the same Debra L. Dickson?

Eschaton commenter flory points out that Popline's Dickson may be paid by the grantor, i.e., the government. And this DKos diary has more on the back-and-forth between Dickson and a librarian that brought the censorship to light.

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